


these will just be places to me now or the astuary king: fragments of a reversal in seven parts

by inkrush81



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam 'I'm done with your shit™' Parrish, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Better Read Those Terms and Conditions, Canon-Typical Violence, Celebrate the Fourth in Style, Character Study, Dream Creatures, Fireworks, Joseph Kavinsky Lives, Joseph Kavinsky is his own warning, Left-over pizza, Like really slow, M/M, Magician Adam Parrish, People Acting On Limited Information, Power Dynamics, Property Disputes in Henrietta, Slow Burn, Tattoos, Unhealthy Relationships, the dream pack, who (if he had a computer) recent google search would read: anger management courses near me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2018-03-09
Packaged: 2018-11-23 11:04:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 141,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11401218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkrush81/pseuds/inkrush81
Summary: Sitting in Monmouth listening to Gansey ramble on, Adam wasn’t so sure a bloody confrontation was unavoidable. Ronan, after all, wasn’t the only person who had stake in this. Kavinsky was messing with Cabeswater, so he was also messing with Adam. But even Adam didn’t want what was coming if it could be avoided. If Ronan wasn’t going to try and talk,actually talk,to Kavinsky, Adam would.Or what might have happened if Adam had brokered a deal with Kavinsky in return for him not draining the ley line.





	1. part one: sixes hang in the door

 

 

 

 

 

act i: ain't that some kind of quandary

 

 

 

 

 

Adam stopped in at Monmouth Wednesday night with great hesitation. He and Gansey had not made up from their fight on Friday, nor had they gotten over the awkwardness of Sunday. Frankly, Adam had no interest in speaking with him at the moment. But before Persephone had left him earlier that night, in the woods, after that final scrying session for Cabeswater, when the line was finally _good enough for now_ and Adam could actually think again, she had cryptically told him that Gansey, Ronan, Blue, Maura, and Calla had done ... _something_ and he should at least learn what it was. Why she couldn’t have told him herself was irksome, but he was beginning to see that was merely Persephone’s character. 

He went to Monmouth and reluctantly offered his presence as an olive branch. Noah’s room was still dark and empty and Ronan was sitting on the floor next to Gansey’s bed with Chainsaw. Gansey reluctantly accepted and in return offered the remains of their unfinished dinner. Adam was more happy to accept the left over pizza Ronan had left on the pool table. He ate as Ronan told him what he’d learned while they were gone to Gansey’s parents’ and then Gansey extrapolated on what that meant for Cabeswater, Noah, and the Glendower search. 

“I’m stopping,” Ronan said. “I didn’t realize how it was affecting everything.”

“So I guess the question is how do we get Kavinsky to stop,” Adam mused and he took a bite of the second sausage and cheese slice he’d grabbed.

“Ronan’s handling it,” Gansey said, dismissive. It had taken Adam several seconds before he could remind himself to continue chewing or the pizza in his mouth would get soggy. Ronan ‘handling’ anything to do with Kavinsky was the biggest load of shit Adam had heard in a good while.

Ronan’s first instincts when he met with resistance were not the best (likely punching the nearest wall), but Ronan’s response when met with Kavinsky was even worse. They were like an ocean of oil and a burning match. 

“You’re gonna talk to him?” Adam asked, hoping against hope. 

“He won’t listen to me,” Ronan said, which could mean anything from he had asked and Kavinsky actually wouldn’t listen to him to Ronan had just assumed such a conversation would be fruitless. 

Gansey herded the talk to safer topics, telling Adam about the other hitmen who apparently had come to Henrietta after the Grey Man went rogue. But Adam was still thinking about what to do with Kavinsky. 

Gansey knew better than anyone, Ronan looked for opportunities to rage and storm, craved them. For all Gansey’s advice to stay off the streets and avoid K’s pack of dogs, there seemed little logic in leaving this negotiation in Ronan’s less than capable hands. It made it all the stranger, almost like Gansey was inviting a fight. _Unless..._

Adam realized that it was happening again. It was the thing with Whelk all over. Their goal was being threatened and Gansey didn’t want to do anything about it. Again. Adam knew Gansey and he knew that Gansey had seen all his available routes for dealing with Kavinsky, disliked all of them, and decided he would sit on his ass instead. He would just let the problem fester and fester until it popped in an explosion of violence, quite possibly death.

Gansey had railed against Adam for taking action and ensuring that they would be the ones to be favored by the ley line and by Cabeswater. Because it hadn't been his idea. Because he hadn’t approved of it first. Because it hadn't fell within his realm of acceptable losses and he deemed it too dangerous; thus Adam shouldn't have done it. And here it was happening again, Gansey letting his distaste for the paths before them cloud his judgement. 

Some things had to be done whether you thought they were beneath you or not. 

Contrary to what one might think, his father’s habit of taking swings at him had not resulted in Adam being a pacifist. He didn’t like it, but he couldn’t deny violence had its uses. He understood it, though never wanted to wield it himself. Adam had more efficient ways of achieving his goals. And somehow this seemed like there was more at risk than with Gansey’s pointless pushing for Ronan to go to classes. The way he’d bend ass backwards and belly up to force Ronan away from what he was choosing. With Kavinsky in the mix, Ronan would choose a fight. If they fought now, Adam had a feeling they were gonna do more than break each other’s teeth. 

Sitting in Monmouth listening to Gansey ramble on, Adam wasn’t so sure a bloody confrontation was unavoidable. Ronan, after all, wasn’t the only person who had stake in this. Kavinsky was messing with Cabeswater, so he was also messing with Adam. But even Adam didn’t want what was coming if it could be avoided. If Ronan wasn’t going to try and talk, _actually talk,_ to Kavinsky, Adam would. 

Ronan’s neglect of his phone worked in Adam’s favor. He had just gone in the kitchen/bath to wash up and have a few moments to think of how he could even find Kavinsky when Adam saw Ronan’s cell. He had left it on the bathroom counter next to the sink. Adam wiped his hand off on his jeans and pressed the home button. The screen lit up with just the time and a generic background; no demand for a passcode. Adam slipped the phone in his pocket, a plan taking form in his mind.

Making the decision to act alone, again, without consultation of the others and without backup was easier this time. Adam knew no one would thank him for doing what was necessary, but he couldn’t wait. It was fine for Gansey to fritter away his time. He, like Ronan, had so much of it to spare. But Adam didn’t have that luxury. He couldn’t have Cabeswater sending him cryptic messages through visions during work and it would only get worse when school came in September.

Aware of the phone in his pocket, Adam made his excuses and left as soon as he could. Once in the Monmouth lot, he had opened up the text thread to Kavinsky. Most of it was from Kavinsky, unsurprising, and a fact that would certainly work in Adam’s favor. He had typed out a demand to meet and details for where. Then, without waiting for Kavinsky’s reply, he had placed it behind the front wheel of Ronan’s BMW, where it would look like it had been accidentally dropped. 

Gansey’s words _Adam Parrish, army of one_ echoed through his mind, but it wouldn’t matter if this worked.

 

 

 

 

 

The next day, if it could even be called day yet, he woke up earlier than usual to drive out to Cabeswater. The sun hadn’t even considered rising and Adam was early, but he needed to communicate with Cabeswater before the meeting. He parked his car a few miles up and then as he stepped into Cabeswater Adam thought of the clearing where he had told Kavinsky to meet him. The forest obliged and took him back exactly where he needed to be. It would be better if Kavinsky didn’t see his car. Adam needed to use every advantage here and the element of surprise was key. 

Adam only knew about the clearing he'd told Kavinsky to meet him in, because it was one of the places Cabeswater had wanted him to attend to first. It was twenty feet in off the highway, which had bisected the ley line. All the energy had been stoppered up there, sparking and fizzing useless and attempting to jump the asphalt to the other side. The county had tried on multiple occasions to keep the roadway lit, but the excess energy kept blowing out the streetlights. It was considered a creepy bit of highway by the locals. A strange place, where strange things occurred, and Adam could admit he had been a little creeped by it himself when he hadn’t known what was really happening. Even with the line now able to run easily across the clearing, the area was still rich with residual energy. It would be easier for Cabeswater to help him out. 

Adam kneeled down near the edge of the clearing, where he would have a view of whoever entered from the highway. When he reached out to Cabeswater, Adam described what he was planning. It took a few different attempts to get the intention across. But once Cabeswater understood, it picked up where Adam had faltered and filled in the next steps of the plan with a perfect chorus to what Adam had been thinking. Cabeswater took Adam’s scant memories of Kavinsky and twisted them around, twining over him, strangling the breath from him. Slowly killing him, the way Kavinsky was slowly killing Noah and Cabeswater with his continuous over-use of the line.

It seemed obvious to Adam, that Cabeswater would not need to take such a drastic step. That Kavinsky would not need to think about saving himself long enough for Cabeswater to actually kill him. What Cabeswater suggested would just be a rouse. It was brilliantly unpleasant. It would get the job done though.

Cabeswater shuddered and Adam clambered for his body in a horrible panic. It took him too long to grasp his bones and skin, and slowly, _slowly_ he came back to his body. The first thing that always seemed to come back was his hearing and faintly Adam heard the sounds of a car pull over on the shoulder of the highway just beyond the trees. Still several minutes passed before Adam heard footsteps and the crunch of leaves. Kavinsky stepped into the clearing, glancing around, eyes no doubt darting behind his sunglasses seeking out the shadows of the clearing for Ronan. He was relaxed thinking himself unobserved, but he stopped short when he saw Adam. 

“Parrish?” Kavinsky asked, tone bordering on mystified. “Lynch chicken out and send you?”

“No, I sent that text.”

Kavinsky’s head snapped to Adam, and he had a few seconds to relish the look of total flummoxed surprise roll over Kavinsky’s features before his lips fell back into their usual amusedly blasé resting smirk.

“He probably hasn’t even realized his phone’s missing,” Adam continued. 

“Really.”

Adam shrugged.

“And why,” Kavinsky asked, “would you do that?”

“We needed to talk to you. Since it was obvious Ronan wasn’t going to do it, and time was getting short, for me in particular...” Adam trailed off. 

“You decided to pretend to be him?” Kavinsky’s eyebrows rose even higher. “You couldn’t have texted me yourself?”

“I don’t have a cell phone,” Adam dismissed. “Would you actually have shown up if you knew it was me?”

It was Kavinsky’s turn to shrug. “Alright, Parrish. What’s so important that you had to drag me out of bed before the fucking sun could even get up, under false pretenses no less?” Kavinsky asked, smile closer to a leer.

“How much do you know about the energy that creates the things you pull out of your dreams?” Adam asked, appreciating Kavinsky’s cut to the chase.

Kavinsky crossed his arms and, after a considered suspicious pause, said “Enough.”

“What if I were to tell you the way you use the ley line is draining it to the point where it doesn’t recover before you use it again and so there isn’t anything left for anyone else who needs to draw on it?”

“...That’s not been my experience,” Kavinsky said, bringing the knuckles of one hand up to press against his lips, in an expression ...ironic or thoughtful. It was hard to read him with those ugly shades on. 

“You can think whatever you want, but we’re still dealing with the consequences of Ronan and your actions.”

“We?”

“Like I said there are others who rely on the ley line to exist.”

“Fair enough,” Kavinsky said, nonplussed. “But what’s your point?”

“You need to cut down on you’re dreaming. Ronan is going to stop entirely-”

Kavinsky let out a dubious scoff. 

“- _but_ you’ve been running a business off this for years. I doubt you could cut it off full stop even if you wanted to. Your customers wouldn’t let you,” Adam said, delicately. Rumor was Kavinsky himself had a _little_ drug habit, but it wouldn’t do Adam any favors to bring that up. “My point is I’m asking you to stop the excessive waste. Stop dreaming up cars to replace the ones you purposefully crashed. Cut it down to only what you absolutely need and we won’t have a problem.”

Kavinsky stared at him for seven full seconds, before he heaved out a breath, a creaky rasp of a sound. He did it again, before erupting in a full laugh.

“Oh that’s good!” Kavinsky wheezed between breaths. 

Adam was unmoved. He had been waiting for the moment when Kavinsky would start laughing at him. Oddly, he was gratified that their conversation had remained serious until Adam’s actual request. 

Except this wasn’t a _request._ It was an ultimatum. Kavinsky _would_ do this for them. 

“Alright, I bite,” Kavinsky said, finally sobering up, properly interpreting Adam’s untroubled silence as a winning card he was waiting to play. “I do this or what exactly, Parrish?”

“This place, Cabeswater...I asked to meet here because it’s special,” Adam started. He didn’t wait for Kavinsky’s input on that point. “This forest is sentient and relies on the ley line for energy to exist too.”

“Is the magic forest going to attack me?” Kavinsky asked, bored and indulgent.

“Cabeswater doesn’t like you. It sees you as a thief.”

Kavinsky smirked, pulling down his white sunglasses so he could meet Adam’s eyes, “I _am_ a thief.”

“You’ve taken more than your fair share of the energy and that’s hurt Cabeswater.”

“And if I don’t stop?” Kavinsky asked, still indulgent, still bored. “Parrish, you still haven’t told me the consequences of my actions.”

Something keen roiled in Kavinsky’s eyes. It made Adam feel like he was missing some secret knowledge, or more likely a private joke. It annoyed him to the point where he didn't have to put any extra steel in his voice to make his next words sound unyielding.

“Then,” Adam said, mentally prompting the forest. “I'll let Cabeswater bury you.”

Kavinsky’s disbelieving silence was broken by the sound of the earth cracking with fresh greens, old dead leaves crunched and blew. The clearing was full of the sounds of growing. To Kavinsky's credit, he didn't scream. He only let out a muttered ‘what the fuck,’ when Cabeswater began twining vines of ivy, older and thicker then they had any right to be, over Kavinsky’s shoes and around his ankles; rooting him down when he tried to hop away. 

Kavinsky's expression, as he watched the plants grow at an alarming rate over him, was oddly thoughtful for someone being threatened by sentient plant life. When he looked back up, the way he stared at Adam, like he was looking at a totally new person, was unnerving.

“With you or a against you?” he asked, sardonic. 

Adam didn't reply. 

The vines, still growing, were tightening around his knees now, but Kavinsky riffled in his pockets and came up with a little green pill. “Or I could take this. I go to sleep and steal all the energy the ley line is currently holding to dream up a fucking fire-breathing dragon. Then I’ll wake up and tell the dragon to burn your forest to the ground.”

Adam had the sudden sensation of loosing his footing on a very high ledge. A horrible moment of suspended terror that seemed to carry on and on. Of course Kavinsky would bridle at such a ultimatum, possibly pull a gun, but Adam had not considered a counter threat so effective. Now that he was faced with the possibility, it seemed so obvious that this was the route Kavinsky would take when threatened. Adam felt foolish. Images of trees burning flashed through his mind, unwittingly translating the threat for Cabeswater. 

In seconds the sun was shrouded and the dark, cold that encompassed them had dropped like a stone. The only sound in the clearing was the angry rustling of leaves.

“Impressive, but do you think you’re vines are faster than me? Do you _know_ I couldn’t burn this forest down around us as I was strangled to death?” Kavinsky asked, humorous and snide. “My death doesn’t matter so much, right? But how would you put out a fire in your precious forest this far out of town and when there’s no juice left on the line?”

Adam had never seen Ronan pull something out of his dreams. He didn’t know if time passed differently there or how fast an experienced forger like Kavinsky could dream up a mythical creature. Adam didn’t like operating on so little information. He didn’t know what was possible. He didn’t _know._

As the silence ticked between them, the vines slowed their progress up Kavinsky’s thighs. Cabeswater, it seemed, was no longer certain of Adam’s course of action. 

“I’ve learned recently,” Kavinsky began when he finally spoke again, startling Adam from his thoughts, “that ultimatums only work if you’re willing to loose everything. Compromises seem to be where it’s at when it comes to these rock-and-hard-places. So, what if we made a trade?” 

“What kind of trade?” Adam asked hesitantly. He couldn’t think of anything he could even offer Kavinsky that the other didn’t have already; couldn’t dream up or buy. “You want me to fix up your car?”

“No,” Kavinsky said in a breath of laughter. “The deal: I won’t take anything big out of my dreams. I won’t drain the line with small stuff either. I will only take out what I need.” He paused, as if giving Adam time to correct him. Adam didn’t. That was exactly what he needed, but Kavinsky still didn’t continue. 

“In exchange for ...?” Adam prompted.

“You.”

“What?”

“I want you to run with us.”

The vines were twisting up and out, trying to get at Kavinsky’s arms. Adam waited for Kavinsky to scoff, tell him to fuck off, before taking the pill anyway, and then for him to burn everything to the ground. Adam still wasn’t convinced he could do it, but that didn’t mean Kavinsky wouldn’t try. 

“You can’t be serious,” Adam stated, when he finally regained some sense and Kavinsky had let the joke go on longer than Adam would have thought he could keep a straight face.

“I absolutely am,” Kavinsky said. “Spend your free time with us and I’ll stop.”

“If you think this will be some way to get back at Ronan for not hanging out with you-”

“It’s not,” Kavinsky cut in with such a sudden sharpness that Adam was reminded of who he was dealing with. “I have other reasons.”

Adam raised an eyebrow. 

“Not everything I do is to get a reaction out of Ronan fucking Lynch!”

Both of Adam’s eyebrows were trying to climb into his hairline now. 

“But if this aggravates him,” Kavinsky allowed, “that’s just a cherry on top.”

“Then why? I’m not a dreamer. I don’t race. I’m not-” Adam broke off unwilling to say any of the other things he wasn’t. Adam was a lot of things, but he was nothing Kavinsky could ever want to _run with_.

“Parrish, Parrish, Parrish, you’re a smart boy. I’m sure you could figure it out eventually.”

But it didn’t make sense. Unless, maybe Kavinsky was high right now, which would certainly explain his nonchalance towards impending death. Unless he only wanted Adam to fuck with Gansey. Adam had spent enough time trading barbs with Ronan to know how careful one could slice the truth and have it not be a lie. _Unless_ he wanted Adam for Cabeswater. Something in Kavinsky’s clear intense gaze, made Adam think that was the most likely reason. 

Adam wasn’t considering it. He couldn’t give up the scant time he had for himself to Kavinsky. But he would not have the cinder of Cabeswater on his hands either. “For how long?”

“How long do you need the line free?”

“As long as it takes,” 

“There you go then.”

“You expect this to be an indefinite arrangement?” Adam asked, incredulous.

Kavinsky shrugged.

“What does that _mean_?” Adam asked waspishly.

“How about for as long as you fucking need it to?” Kavinsky replied with ill humor.

“Or till one of us leaves Henrietta,” Adam said carefully.

Kavinsky nodded.

Adam was not considering it. He wasn’t even sure it was possible, with what little free time he had.

_If Kavinsky was serious..._

Adam already didn’t have the time to search for Glendower like Gansey or Ronan. Even Blue seemed to have more time than him. It was already painful in a kind of dull achy way when he knew they were together out looking and he was stuck at work. Adam could only imagine how that ache would grow when extrapolated to the whole week, every week, while he was wasting his time with Kavinsky’s crowd.

It wouldn’t be a waste though. It was a trade. Like his hours at the factory for money to pay rent and Aglionby tuition, spending his time with Kavinsky would pay off in _having_ a forest to search.

_If Kavinsky was serious._

If Adam took the deal, at most, it would be a year and a half; the rest of summer and then all senior year, maybe sooner if Gansey found some clue that indicated they had moved Glendower further inland. Though it felt like they were on the right path now, so maybe that wouldn’t matter. But, of course, Gansey would have less time to look for Glendower while splitting his attention with school, especially if he had to tutor Ronan again, which could drag it out even further. What if they still hadn’t woken him by the end of senior year? Would Adam leave Henrietta before they found Glendower? It wasn’t much of a question. 

_If Kavinsky was serious._

Adam thought about the evenings when he would get off work and be so tired all he wanted to do was collapse on his bed but instead how he’d pulled out his history reading or the Latin declension he didn't finish on his break. He thought of nights he'd power through the exhaustion just so he could have his rare chunks of free time actually be free for finding Glendower. 

Giving that hard earned time to Kavinsky's ambitionless crowd wouldn't _kill_ Adam. If this was what Kavinsky was willing to trade for his dangerous dreaming...it was within Adam’s power to stop him. The thing was he couldn't exactly comprehend his side of the deal. Oh, he knew what he was giving up. But what did running with Joey K mean, aside from street racing, defacement of county property, commandeering the fairgrounds and abandoned warehouses for wild parties, and being tangentially involved with drug dealing. Adam realized he didn't actually know what they did with the rest of their time. It wasn’t as if any of them were stupid. Aglionby had very high standards and bribes, though not uncommon, really only worked for close grades. The strings Gansey had pulled to keep Ronan on the registry must have truly been miraculous.

_But I need to be there when they find him,_ Adam thought. _For this to be worth anything_ , Adam had to be with them when they found Glendower. While he would like to think that Gansey would wait for him, trading his time like this almost ensured that Adam would _not_ be there. Adam was of half a mind to just tell Cabeswater to take Kavinsky as quickly as possible and screw whatever dragon he _might_ be able to pull from his dreams, when the trees rustled in their sonorous voices.

“Dicat veritatem.”

Cabeswater had still been watching his thoughts, Adam realized.

The trees whispered all around them, “Pacisocor accipe.”

“Auntem-” Adam started.

“Pacisocor accipe, magi.”

_Take the deal._ Cabeswater wanted him to take the deal. 

He looked at Kavinsky. He had been stealing from this place for years. Cabeswater would know how fast Kavinsky’s dreams could be. The vines were around his waist now and Kavinsky was more restless than he had been minutes earlier. The green pill catching an odd glint from the diffuse light as he held it well away from the growing foliage.

There was no time to think. Gansey would not be pleased, but if it was this or loosing Cabeswater, Adam could bare it. He would have to.

“Fine.”

“Fine?”

“I’ll run with you in exchange for not draining the ley line,”

Kavinsky’s grin was vicious. “Fuck yes, Parrish!”

“Factum est,” Adam told the trees and the pressure that had dropped in the air lessened somewhat.

The vines around Kavinsky’s lower body curled away, creaking and rustling. Adam bit the inside of his cheek and hoped this wasn’t a mistake. It would be so easy for that to all be lip-service from Kavinsky, something for him to pretend to go along with, only to turn around and attack once he was free.

Kavinsky made no such move. He only brushed off some of the heavier bark that had rubbed on him at his ankles and feet. That didn’t mean he couldn’t sneak back in the night and light Cabeswater up like a the forest fire he’d promised from the start. He straightened up, grinning. Adam frowned. They had reached a solution, but for some reason Adam still felt like Kavinsky was threatening to dream that dragon. 

“You don’t seem too broken up about restricting your dreaming,” Adam observed.

“It’s a compromise, Parrish,” Kavinsky sighed. “No one is ever satisfied. I’m just looking on the bright side; _You_ running with us!”

Adam didn’t understand how the trade would be worth it for Kavinsky. How could getting Adam’s free time be a bright spot in exchange for the near infinite creation Kavinsky had at his fingertips? He couldn’t analyze it at the moment. He needed to make it clear that he wasn’t interested in being press-ganged into giving up his control and he wouldn’t do anything to get himself kicked out of Aglionby. Adam had a life, goals, plans, a future, and he wouldn’t loose it. Not for Kavinsky. Not for Glendower. 

“I’m not sure what you’re expecting from this, but I won’t-”

“Already don’t think you can keep up?” Kavinsky smirked.

“-be free all the time. I have work and...obligations,” Adam finished lamely, thinking of Cabeswater, Glendower, and Persephone.

Kavinsky looked unimpressed with this protest, shrugging he said, “We'll make it work.”

“And I don’t drink,” Adam said.

“Oh,” Kavinsky scoffed, “It’s not like we’re gonna force you. Did it sound like we’re gonna force you to do things? Maybe light peer pressure or some gentle ah-” He broke off, half his face scrunching up in effort to find some elusive word, “coercion,” which he landed on with a savage grin.

“Can’t say I’ve ever been too susceptible to that kinda thing.”

“I guess we’ll see, won’t we?” Kavinsky took a few lazy steps forward. “I suppose my question would be what happens if even after all this and I've cut down on my dreaming, the line’s still getting drained.”

“I’d know.” Adam narrowed his eyes. Something in his face hardened, as if Kavinsky gave him one more inkling that he was trying to find a way around their terms, Adam would call those vines back right now.

“Of course,” Kavinsky laughed, but it seemed to lack genuine mirth. “You’ve got an insider knowledge, but I'm not the only dreamer in Henrietta, Parrish, as I'm sure you remember.”

Adam didn't bristle, but it took a concerted effort. Ronan didn’t lie, but he also hadn’t explicitly promised to stop dreaming and besides, Ronan still couldn’t control it.

Kavinsky was in front of Adam now and he took him in at a quick glance.

He was a good half a foot shorter, just as lean, a bit more wiry. But he was gaunter than even Adam. Gaunt in a way that made it clear he was starving for something that the other Aglionby boys never were. Everything on Kavinsky was pulled taut. Adam knew he was tall, but he thought being less than average height would have done something to Kavinsky’s reputation, but his aura more than made up for any mass his body lacked with a smile. Teeth malevolent as white, that told any smart boy this was a predator. 

“But,” Kavinsky said, a nasty sort of smile spread over his face. “You have my word.”

“I'm not sure I entirely trust that,” Adam said cautiously.

“Then,” Kavinsky said, thoroughly amused, “this isn't going to work out very well for either of us.” 

Adam silently agreed. Kavinsky, slick as he was and slimy as he left you, didn’t have a reputation of bad deals. Just bad habits. Adam had never bought from him, but even the public school kids knew the score on a deal with Kavinsky. Tell him what you needed, wait till he called, meet where he told you, you delivered payment, and you got what you wanted. Simple, the deal was the deal. You try and stick around after, though, on your head be it. As far as he knew, Kavinsky had been straight with him. And while Adam’s suspicious mind didn't like operating on the innocent-until-proven-guilty mantra, there wasn't much else he could do. “Shake on it?”

Kavinsky clasped Adam’s hand. Just as dry as Adam's, not quite soft, but still rougher than Adam expected of an Aglionby boy.

“No pinky swear?”

“That's next,” Adam quipped.

Adam thought of the vision from the dreaming tree. He wondered, as he hooked pinkies with Kavinsky, if in stepping away from Gansey would he prevent it from happening? Or if he was rushing towards it faster. He would do anything to prevent it and removing himself from most of the time they spent together certainly had to be one way to stop it from happening. But this was not his first choice. 

When Kavinsky threw an arm around Adam’s shoulders, he flinched.

“Jumpy!” Kavinsky noted, pulling back slightly, still grinning.

“It’s a bit early for physical contact,” Adam admitted through grit teeth. Though he didn’t think he’d ever be comfortable enough with Kavinsky to want him to throw an arm around him. 

“Alright,” Kavinsky said, pushing himself even closer, before pulling away entirely. “But fair warning: we’re a pretty tactile group...Where did you park? Didn’t see your car.”

“Two miles up the highway.” 

“You walked two miles just for the element of surprise?

“No,” Adam said, before shrugging, “Cabeswater.”

“Oh, that’s just weird, man,” Kavinsky said. “C’mon, we’ll pick up your car and then go back to mine to hash this thing out.”

“I have work at 8.”

“I figured.”

Adam looked at him and Kavinsky shrugged.

“Why else meet at the ass crack of dawn? Let’s _go_.”

 

 

 

 

 

“You want a cup of tea?” Kavinsky asked him the moment they walked through the doors of his McMansion, as he picked his way through the house. 

“You have tea?” Adam asked. It was a simple thing to have, innocuous and yet somehow Kavinsky having tea was more bizarre than anything else that had happened so far this morning. 

“Yeah, Proko likes to have some caffeine around, since I don’t do coffee,” Kavinsky answered as if those two statements made anything more than tangential sense when strung together like that. 

“Where is Prokopenko then?”

“Probably asleep downstairs. It’s summer, Parrish. Most everyone who can afford to sleep in will. Like I would have been if someone hadn’t lured me out into the woods only to then threaten me with death by strangulation if I don’t lay off my highly successful business.”

It struck Adam that this was the second deal he had made with some unknown force none of them should have been toying within less than a year. Cabeswater was largely benevolent, as much as anything wild could be. But with Kavinsky, it was like a deal with the devil. If Adam were a betting man, he’d say this thing would be a wash by the end of the week. But, at least, then he could say he tried. 

“So tea?” Kavinsky asked, head hidden in some cupboard.

“What kind?” Adam asked, this whole exchange leaving him on awkward footing. Kavinsky trying to serve him tea was just ...odd.

“There’s a few...Green, ginger peach, hyacinth blossom- what the hell,” Kavinsky straightened, frowning at the box he’d found, before tossing it back in and pawing through what remained, “Earl gray?”

“Yeah, that’s good.”

Kavinsky took a mug down from another cabinet and filled it with tap water, before shoving it in the microwave. 

“So break it down for me,” he said and crossed his arms, leaning back against the sink. “When do I get you?”

Adam, who had shoved his hands in his pockets, rocked on his heels and outlined his work schedule over the dull humming which filled the room. Adam had a pretty routine schedule for each of his jobs. He needed that in order to balance all three of them and school without conflict. So he had briefed Kavinsky on it all by the time the microwave beeped and Kavinsky pushed off the counter. 

“Milk? Sugar?” he glanced at Adam, ripping the tea packet open.

“No.”

“Good, because I don’t have either.” He threw the teabag in and slid the mug towards Adam, before hopping to sit on top of the counter. “Doesn’t leave us much time,” Kavinsky said reflectively.

“I told you,” Adam said, unable to hide the exhaustion from his voice, as if he didn’t know how little time he had to himself. _Had_ had to himself. It was a provocation, testing to see if Kavinsky still thought this screwed up deal was worth it. Or worse, if he tried to pay Adam in lieu of his job to spend time with him. Some sick inversion of what Gansey did to Blue that first night at Nino’s. Adam would leave, then. He would leave and let Ronan handle this with his fists.

“We’ll make it work,” Kavinsky repeated. “And I’m sure you want to check in on ol’Dickie-boy’s quest too.”

Adam just stared at him.

“Of course you do,” Kavinsky shook his head, wry and unsurprised. “Take Sunday for that shit and we get you the rest of the week.”

“Why?”

“Because _I_ need a day to dream.”

Adam exhaled a soft scoff.

This was why people thought Kavinsky was evil. Not the drugs, not the parties, this quiet manipulative passive aggression. Kavinsky had known Adam would ask why he would not want him Sunday, and thus set up the perfect moment to tell him exactly what he intended to do with all that time alone. Now Adam would be thinking of what Kavinsky was dreaming while he and the others were searching for Glendower. That tactic was at once despicable and shrewd in a way Adam couldn’t help but admire, albeit grudgingly.

“So if I choose not to spend Sunday with them...”

Kavinsky smirked and leaned forward, “Maybe if you’ve been a good boy, I’ll take you with me.” and he tapped the side of his head.

Adam wasn’t shocked Kavinsky had pulled out some pill that allowed shared dreaming, but it was one thing to spend all his time with Kavinsky. It was quite another to willingly go inside his mind.

Adam picked up the mug, thinking about how he wanted to phrase the question that had been weighing on his mind for the drive to Kavinsky’s. He dunked the teabag in the hot water and asked, “You don’t seem worried that you might inadvertently take something from your dreams the rest of the week.”

“And by doing so break our deal?” Kavinsky raised his eyebrows. “I’m not.”

“Really?”

“Don’t compare my dreaming to Lynch’s. Ronan doesn’t have the practice I do. You’ve seen my stuff right?”

Adam nodded. 

“There’s a reason I have a reputation. He’s still just getting his legs,” Kavinsky said. “Hell, I can’t even remember the last time I _accidentally_ took something out.”

Adam wasn’t sure he entirely believed that last bit, but it was hard to argue that Kavinsky didn’t at least know what he was doing in regards to dreaming. He was an impeccable forger. Adam had held the fake driver’s licenses and he’d been in Kavinsky’s dreamed up Evo. They were perfect copies on the surface. The attention to detail spoke to practice and intention. It made sense that if he had such fine-tuned control when he was purposefully dreaming something that he would be able to _not_.

“What else?” Kavinsky breezed on. “What about this forest business?”

“I woke the ley line when I made the deal with Cabeswater,” Adam started, unsure of how much of this he wanted to share. But what Cabeswater needed from him was different from what he did with Gansey. He couldn’t make it wait till his free Sunday. Kavinsky needed to understand that Adam would have to take care of Cabeswater as it needed. To do that Adam would have to be more open than he would like. 

“When was that?”

“Two months ago.”

Kavinsky nodded, as if he were putting some things together in his mind. “I noticed I could dream bigger stuff faster.”

“The thing is now that the line is awake and more energy is running along it, all the areas of the line that have been broken by roads or natural disasters or whatever have become obvious and are causing flow problems. Sort of like broken water pipes,” Adam elaborated. “So it’s my job to go out and repair these breaks in the line.”

“Which means?”

“I'm new to all this,” Adam admitted slowly. “But I scry or draw cards and that seems to be the easiest way for Cabeswater to tell me what it needs, then I go and do it. It's a lot of ....moving stones and things back into their proper places.”

“Is that best done alone?”

“Actually,” Adam started, wanting to say yes. But realized it wasn’t. He had thought yesterday that was the case. Except everything he’d done for Cabeswater this week had been with Persephone. It hadn’t been until this morning, when he’d communed with the forest alone, that Adam had felt the pull. There was no other way to describe it. Like falling asleep at the wheel when you just couldn’t keep your eyes open for a second longer. You knew it was wrong, that you would die if you didn’t snap out of it, and yet it was too easy to just slip away. The urge to just let himself become one with the vast network of forest had been too strong. Coming back to his body had taken a herculean effort. 

It had genuinely scared him. 

He hadn’t understood it all the other times, but experiencing the full brunt of its seductive draw without her to shield him, Adam knew he had felt it before too. Persephone had been grounding him. “It's really easy to loose myself while I'm scrying. So it doesn't hurt to have someone there to pull me out if I get... stuck.”

“Right, well just let us know. One of us can go with you,” Kavinsky said with an accommodative shrug. 

Adam hadn’t been expecting an offer of assistance. He wasn’t even sure he wanted one. This was supposed to be his thing. Something he could handle without Gansey, without the others.

Kavinsky turned back in time to see the incredulous look on Adam's face. "This isn't as weird for me as you might think," he laughed. "I pull shit out of my dreams remember?"

“Okay,” Adam conceded. “I still don't get why you'd help with this.”

“Strengthening the ley line," Kavinsky mused. "You're right. I don't have a vested interest in that at all.”

Adam inclined his head. Fair point. “Is this the longest you've ever not purposefully been an asshole?”

“Missing my usual charm?” Kavinsky asked, eyebrows raised in mock curiosity. “I can go back to it any time.”

“Maybe in a bit,” Adam said. He wasn’t sure if it was the right move to admit this, but he had to say it. “Look, whatever it is you’re planning to get out of this, I can’t get kicked out of Aglionby. If it comes anywhere close to that, I will walk.”

He met Kavinsky’s eyes then. He was appraising. No trace of pity in sight.

“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” Kavinsky said, still holding Adam’s gaze. 

One beat, two beats, three beats, four. Adam rocked back on his heels and nodded. Kavinsky nodded too, going back to leaning on the counter.

“So,” Kavinsky began. “You have to be at work at the body shop in an hour and then after that you go to the warehouse. And then tomorrow you go into the body shop again, but at four-”

“Make it four thirty. I’ll want to shower.”

“Four thirty we’ll pick you up. You’re not still at that nightmare trailer, are you?”

“No,” Adam paused, his mind running through the possible implications of that question. Adam hadn’t bothered to try and hide where he came from when he was first enrolled in Ag. It would have been impossible anyway. Kavinsky knowing that meant very little. “I’m renting a room above St. Agnes.”

“Good.”

“Friday night,” Adam mused. “Big plans?”

Kavinsky scoffed. “Not this Friday. Can’t have everyone partied out before the Fourth.”

Adam nodded. The stove clock told him he’d have more than enough time to make it to Boyd’s if he left now. 

“Well,” he said, rocking back on his heels. “See you tomorrow.”

“Parrish,” Kavinsky called, stopping him just before he left the kitchen. “You said Lynch was too distracted to mention this....what could be more important?”

For a moment, Adam debated how much of this to tell Kavinsky. Ultimately, Adam decided he had a right to know, since the collector’s men were hunting dreamers, not just Lynchs.

“I don't know the whole story, but the draining of the ley line isn’t the only reason you should watch your dreaming,” Adam prefaced. “The man who killed Ronan’s father was hunting for something that could pull things out of dreams. He knows now it’s _someone_. He also knows that Ronan and you can-”

“Excuse me?” 

“I wasn’t there. I don’t know the specifics, but Gansey apparently convinced him not to give either of you up.”

“Some fucking hitman,” Kavinsky scoffed. “Was he the one that trashed the warehouse?”

Adam shrugged. “Him or one of the others.”

“Others?”

“Well, he’s not the only one in town now.”

“Pfff, figures,” Kavinsky said, somehow still unconcerned. “ _They_ don’t know about us?”

“I don’t think so,” Adam said. “But the Grey Man found out about Ronan first and he’s completely inconspicuous compared to you. How can you not be worried?”

“Lynch is the one who should be worried,” Kavinsky said, pointing at Adam with two of his fingers. “From what I heard, his father was a right bastard. Screwed over one too many people and got his head bashed in for it.”

“Yeah, well, apparently, the Grey Man thinks his employer wants to take the dream-maker apart. That is take the dreamer apart. Find out what makes ‘em tick,” Adam said, if only to see if he could make Kavinsky show some tremor of fear. 

Kavinsky only blinked blandly at Adam, as if to leave him dissatisfied on purpose. “Do you really expect me to just stop living cause some fucko wants me pinned to a board?” Kavinsky asked, derisive. “It would not be the first time. And it sure as fuck won’t be the last. I’d like to think I can handle it, but hey, thanks for the heads up.”

Adam took that as his cue to go, unsurprised by the stupid bravado. While Kavinsky getting himself captured might be better for Adam, it probably would ultimately make their problems with the drain of the line worse. Adam hoped Kavinsky knew what he was doing.

 

 

 

 

 

As Adam went about the routine repairs he had been assigned at Boyd’s, he turned over this morning’s improbable accord in his head. Kavinsky was not known for his forthright behavior. His word was untested. He had told Adam that his reasons for wanting Adam’s time had nothing to do with Ronan. That, however, did not mean he hadn’t chosen this particular trade to fuck with Gansey. 

Adam considered all the ways he could tell Gansey what they had done. He winced at the mix of consternation, guilt, and unwarranted anger that would no doubt grace Gansey’s features. 

Gansey would tell Adam that Kavinsky was just using him. Which was, of course, the case. Using him for what was Adam’s question.

Adam wasn’t going to fool himself that someone like Kavinsky thought he was anything special. After seventeen years of being told by nearly everyone he ever met that he was no better than the dust he was born to, Adam was under no illusions he came off as someone to take note of. He was too pensive, too haunted, too hungry. 

But those qualities meant little to someone who was just as hungry. When you had been as starved as Adam, you took what you could get and you used it to the best of your advantage. Kavinsky was hungry for something, that much was obvious. Adam just didn’t know if his hunger was the indiscriminate kind, like a fire, or something more productive. It remained to be seen. What Adam had decided was that Kavinsky wasn’t fascinated so much by Adam Parrish, but by what he could do. Which was, in the end, the same thing. 

 

 

 

 

 

act ii: bit — by — bit 

 

 

 

 

 

Really Adam knew he should have made a point to tell Ronan and Gansey that they didn’t have to worry about Kavinsky anymore. By all rights he should have told them Thursday morning and showed up late for work. He could have called them on his lunch later yesterday or even today. 

But if Adam was being honest, the deal he made with Kavinsky was more likely to turn out to be a joke than a solution. He didn’t want to get Gansey’s hopes and ire up for nothing. Adam decided to tell them after he’d spent Friday evening with Kavinsky’s pack. 

Except he had been so hyper focused on _what_ he was going to tell him about the deal, that Adam had completely forgot that he and Gansey had made plans for Friday evening until he was sitting on the front stoop of St. Agnes waiting for Kavinsky to come and pick him up. 

All it would take was a quick call to Gansey’s cell. But Adam didn’t have an explanation for why he was cancelling. He couldn’t lie when he would have to rescind himself a mere two days later. Not that Adam wanted to lie to Gansey, but he only had so many options and, with only a few minutes to spare before Kavinsky was supposed to show up, the truth seemed too daunting for such a short call. 

Adam was saved from having to worry about this too much, by the appearance of a white Mitsubishi, ironically prompt. 

“Hello, beautiful,” Kavinsky drawled, through the rolled down passenger window. Adam could see him grinning, in a wife-beater and his white shades, as he leaned around Swan, who was in the passenger seat and had the July sun catching on the dark skin of his arm which was propped in the window. He was wearing disposable pink sunglasses which matched, in a retro kind of way, with his neon teal tank. They were the picture of summer ease. “Want a ride?”

Adam, baffled by this greeting, had no response other than to pop the door and climb into the back seat. 

“You know Swan,” Kavinsky said by way of introduction once he had closed the door. Adam knew _of_ Swan, they had shared more than a handful of classes over the years, every semester of advanced literature and a couple for Latin, but they had never really spoken.

Swan turned nodding to him and Adam nodded back, while Kavinsky pulled a very illegal u-turn right in front of the church and went straight back the way he’d come. 

“Here, Parrish,” Kavinsky said, tossing something back at Adam. 

It was a phone, very clearly a dream thing. Adam glared at Kavinsky from under his brow. 

“Don’t give me that look,” Kavinsky admonished, catching Adam’s eyes through the rearview mirror, when they pulled up to the next four-way-stop. “That was necessary. If you’re going to run with us, you need that. I’m not interested- and to fucking prove my point!” 

Gansey’s orange Camaro just rolled to a stop with his turn signal on. 

“I don’t want you to treat me like Dick fucking Gansey!” Kavinsky said, before he honked his horn and flipped Gansey the middle finger out his window.

Adam saw three human shapes inside and wondered when Noah would come back. Gansey just waved a dismissive hand at them as he drove past and pulled in behind the church. Something curdled in Adam’s stomach. He should have made up some excuse.

“You didn’t tell him,” Kavinsky stated, sounding inordinately pleased.

“Gansey isn’t my keeper,” Adam replied. It felt like something that needed to be said. He glanced at Swan wondering how much of their deal Kavinsky had told the others.

Kavinsky snorted, “But more over, when would you have had the time, right?”

Adam didn’t say anything.

“You could call him now,” Kavinsky suggested, still smirking. 

Adam would not be calling Gansey now. To demonstrate this, he decidedly slid the dream phone in his front pocket.

“So just keep us in the loop if you’re schedule changes or you need us to help you move rocks.”

Though he had been listening the entire time, this last comment visibly caught Swan’s attention. He looked first at Kavinsky and then Adam in puzzlement.

“Tell Swan about your forest.”

“It’s not my forest.”

“That’s why you should tell it,” Kavinsky said. “I’ll just screw the story all up.”

“Am I going to have to explain it all again when we see the others?”

Kavinsky shrugged. 

“Yes, you will,” Swan said, glancing back at Adam. “So if you don’t want to explain it all twice, I don’t mind hearing about it with the others.”

 

 

 

 

 

The pack and Adam had congregated in Kavinsky’s basement. Adam was greeted amicably enough and they settled down to watch Jiang and Skov beat each other at Mario Kart. Except for Swan, who pulled out a battered copy of _MacBeth_ and laid out on one of the couches in the back.

Idle conversation circled around and around. Whenever it came to Adam, he batted it away in a futile attempt to ward off the explanation that he would be forced to give for his presence. When Proko came back from the bathroom, folding his long limbs under himself as he sat cross legged on the couch cushion next to Adam, he knew it had been useless to put the explanation off.

“Parrish,” Proko said, his eyes alight with interest. “K says you’ll be running with us now.”

“That’s my intention.”

“And we’re ever so curious as to why?” Skov cut in, having paused the game.

“He didn’t tell you?”

“No,” Skov said. “Jiang and I have a bet going though. You can settle it for us: Did the great Gansey throw you out of his graces after realizing you weren’t as rich as him? Or was it that you just got tired of having to fix that piece of shit he calls a car?”

Had Kavinsky really not told them anything about their deal? Adam glanced at him, Kavinsky was and had been watching Adam with a certain intensity ever since the conversation had fell on him. 

Kavinsky shrugged. 

He _hadn’t_ given them an explanation for his sudden presence. And why would he, when the explanation involved Adam nearly killing him. It would be quite the blow to his reputation if that got out, not to mention his pride. If Adam cared about that sort of thing it would be embarrassing that Adam himself hadn’t foreseen Kavinsky’s counter threat. Regardless, he couldn’t chance that getting back to Gansey.

If Kavinsky hadn’t told them anything, then Adam could tell them whatever he wanted about his apparent change in allegiance. And this switch was so absurd he had to give them something. Perhaps he could tell them a version of the truth. They would accept him easier if they didn’t know the whole of it. It would certainly make all the time he would be spending with them less awkward. Good thing Adam didn’t have Ronan’s policy against lies.

“It might sound a bit- fantastic?” Adam started. Swan had put aside his book and moved up. They were all listening now. “There’s a forest outside of Henrietta. We have been searching it for Gansey’s king for a while now. And last school year we found out this forest, Cabeswater, is sentient. It knows things, but right now it’s very weak. I made a pact with it. If I make it stronger, it will help us look for Glendower.”

Not strictly the truth, but close. Close enough to make Adam feel uncomfortable. 

Adam was surprised they weren’t in hysterics at this point. They seemed to be taking his word at face value. Kavinsky’s dreamer status had some benefits. 

“So you’re like a sprite? Is that the term for something that talks to forests?”

“More like a faerie!” Skov shouted, before erupting with raucous laughter.

Swan leaned across the space between them and thwacked him upside the head with his copy of _MacBeth_.

“He’s a magician,” Kavinsky interjected.

“Right,” Adam agreed meeting Kavinsky’s eyes. He hadn’t thought Kavinsky understood what he and Cabeswater were saying in the clearing. Kavinsky took Russian at Ag. He didn’t know Latin.

“That’s all very nice and creepy, but why are you with us and not your merry band of adventurers?”

“Well, it needs me to do things that as a forest, it can’t,” Adam explained. “Kavinsky offered to help with some dream things.”

“Offered?” Jiang repeated, not even bothering to hide his disbelief. 

“Yeah, I wasn’t expecting it either....” Adam said. Somewhere along speaking those words Adam had an epiphany; the perfect reason for his switch. The perfect lie. Worse still, it was close enough to the truth Adam didn’t have to fake an appropriate amount of bitterness when he said, “It was more than Ronan was willing to do.”

The others seemed to take in that piece of information as if it shored up some previous understanding. It seemed too easy.

“Lynch is so jealous of his gift,” Swan observed, commiserating. Adam was surprised by how genuinely sympathetic he sounded. It made Adam wonder exactly what Kavinsky had told them in regards to what happened at the fairgrounds. How much of what Ronan had told them was his generally negative perception of Kavinsky and how much was what really happened. 

Kavinsky clucked his tongue and Swan shifted his gaze to him. Whatever passed between them caused Swan to shrug. Jiang stifled a cough, but it was Proko who broke the silence.

“Is that a good idea? Like why does it even need you to do things that it can’t do itself?”

“It wants me to help it get stronger.”

“Sounds evil,” Jiang muttered. It was a comment Adam would have ignored if Proko too hadn’t shifted nervously next to him.

“It doesn’t feel evil,” Adam stated. He had never really considered if the forest was inherently bad. Wild, of course, but not malevolent. “Not when I’m there. Not when we’re talking. I mean, it’s not human so our communication... especially at the start was disturbing for a while there. But I’m training it. It doesn’t want to scare or upset me.”

The others considered this.

“You should take us,” Skov said, decidedly. “We should meet it ourselves. Give you sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth opinions.”

Proko laughed delightedly, while Skov grumbled something along the lines of ‘why the fuck would I want to go meet a forest?’

“I’ll take you all if you help with strengthening it,” Adam said. 

“What will it do when it’s stronger?” Swan asked.

Adam didn’t know, and said as much, but he resolved to ask Cabeswater the next chance he had. 

 

 

 

 

 

It became increasingly evident as the afternoon went on that Jiang had a cold of some sort, which he was getting progressively worse at hiding. With every un-stifled coughing fit, Adam cringed back into the couch. He had a relatively good constitution, but he also didn’t make a habit of spending long periods of time with people who were ill. He simply couldn’t afford to get sick and miss work. 

It was only when Jiang’s coughing got so bad that he came in dead last on their fourth round of Mario Cart that anyone said anything about it though. 

“K,” Swan began.

“Yeah, alright,’ Kavinsky exhaled and stood. “I’m getting you some cough drops. Parrish, c’mon, I’ll give you a tour while we’re at it.”

“Magic cough drops?” Adam asked as they left the room. 

“I’m not gonna brag,” Kavinsky said, as he climbed the stairs ahead of Adam, still he could hear the smile in his voice. “But they are more effective than regular ones. They don’t just mask the coughing, but heal as well. Last longer too.”

“Impressive,” Adam said, neutrally. 

“Jiang gets sick so much I just keep a stash,” Kavinsky said.

The house was large. Larger than any Adam had been through in Henrietta, still not as big as the Gansey’s place. Aside from the basement, the place was strangely barren with its stock furniture and occasional litters of detritus. 

“Living room here, there’s the deck outside. You already know the kitchen, so we’ll skip that...” Kavinsky said, circling them through bland rooms back to the main hall and stopped at the base of the staircase. He turned and pointed across the space and down a less inviting hallway. “We got the garage, laundry, downstairs bathroom, and an ‘office’ down there, which I’m sure you’re eager to see...”

“Not especially,” Adam shrugged. 

“Didn’t think so,” Kavinsky said, bounding up the stairs. 

“My mom lives down there,” he said gesturing down the hall to his right when they reached the top. “So don’t even bother, but over here we have a couple of rooms you could crash in if you stay over, another bathroom,” he said pointing at a mostly closed door to the right of them before leading Adam right to the end of the hall. “And of course, my room,” Kavinsky said opening the door with a flourish, but proceeding inside without any more fanfare. Adam followed.

Two things struck him immediately. The first was that Kavinsky’s room was just as messy as he expected. The second was a fish tank taking up half the wall across from the bed. It was taller than Adam and at least as big as Kavinsky’s queen sized mattress if it were stood upright. Inside the water churned calmly and beautiful coral climbed up a rock fixture that came up to Adam’s chest. Adam felt it was drawing him in. 

Adam stepped closer, eyes catching on a fluttery lion fish, riding the stream of recycled water jetting in through a tube up near the top of the tank. It was a rainbow of neon pastels and with a knife graphic identical to the one Kavinsky had on the side of his Evo on its flank. 

Movement towards his shins pulled Adam’s attention down near the sand where a sinuous creature was weaving around. It was either an eel or a miniature Chinese dragon. The hybrid looked like Kavinsky had modeled the face off a dragon and the body off a snowflake eel, only instead of the camouflaging whites and browns, the skin was the rich gem tones.

In the bottom left corner of the tank there was a sea anemone the size of his head. The stocks of its blue tentacles, glittering with silver sparkles before ending in hot pink tips, swayed and danced in the slight current of the water. It reminded Adam of something Noah would fawn over. 

These were strange wonderful _dream_ creatures. 

Ronan had taken a raven out of his dreams and night terrors on accident. But Kavinsky was experienced enough that these had to be deliberate.

Adam thought back to that half semester of marine biology they were required to take sophomore year. Scheduled in the spring, so that for those with parents willing to foot the bill, there was an optional spring break spent scuba diving in Costa Rica. Adam had been mildly resentful of the whole course merely on principle, made even worse in practice as it had been one of the few classes he had ever had without Gansey or Ronan. And interestingly one of the even fewer he’d had with Kavinsky. Though once delving into the material, Adam couldn’t deny the subject had been engaging even without the prospect of study abroad.

Kavinsky, if Adam recalled correctly, didn’t even take the Costa Rica trip. Mr. Roszinsky had badgered him endlessly about it, because Kavinsky had been enthralled with the class. Or at least that’s what Adam had interpreted by the fact that he had shown up to practically all the classes and actually asked insightful questions. Ones that revealed he had not only done the reading, but had done some research of his own.

Adam wondered what Mr. Roszinsky would think if he knew exactly what Kavinsky had been _doing_ with the knowledge he’d garnered in the class.

He glanced over at Kavinsky, who had not yet noticed his fascination, still crouched in front of what was no doubt a dream safe grabbing some dream grade cough drops. _He_ had dreamt these up out of nothing. _Kavinsky_ dreamt up whimsical tropical fish, when he wasn’t cooking up a new and improved version of ecstasy or fake IDs. This week was shaping up to be the strangest thing. Turning back to the fish, Adam asked, “Do they have names?”

“Hmmmm?” Kavinsky looked up. He shut the vault, dropped some things on the bed, and came over to the tank. “Oh, sure. The lion-fish is Bishi. I called the eel дракон - dragon, for obvious reasons. And the anemone is цвят,” Adam didn’t know what the word meant, but he assumed it was something in Bulgarian. “Cool, huh?”

“Amazing, actually.” 

Kavinsky shrugged.

“That is,” Adam amended. “Until the DEA comes in here looking for your drugs and instead finds a seventeen year old somehow was harboring three previously undiscovered forms of marine life.”

“It would be five actually,” Kavinsky corrected.

“Where are the other two?”

“That’s Firebreath, the scallop,” Kavinsky said pointing to a purple and orange tiger-striped shell nestled in the bottom right portion of coral Adam had missed in his initial once-over. “When it first opens...if it opens again, it like burps fire.”

Adam raised an eyebrow leaning closer to see the closed shell. 

“I was inspired by those flame scallops we saw in class. But I’m pretty sure I screwed up on it somehow, because it rarely even tries to eat anymore. I had actually been thinking I should dream up a new one with some adjustments, but I guess I won’t be doing that now.”

“You’d just get rid of this one?”

“Did I say that?” Kavinsky asked, then he spread his arms wide. “Look at the size of this tank, man. If Firebreath, wants to sleep for like ten years, have a snack, and then go back to sleep, I certainly don’t give a shit. It’s not hurting anything by just chilling there. I only meant I need to try something different next time.”

Adam had certainly not been expecting this. He was definitely not staring. Kavinsky turned back to him.

“What? Do you think I shoot dogs for shits and giggles? Is that what you thought? You’ve been spending too much time with Dick Three’s smear campaign. I’ll have you know I am strongly against animal cruelty.”

“Good to know,” Adam said, failing to keep the sarcasm from his voice entirely. 

“Pfff, wait till you meet my sweetheart,” Kavinsky said, bouncing over to the light switch. “This is Shelley.”

Kavinsky flicked off the light.

As if in a haunted house, the other side of the glass right in front of Adam’s face, which had been empty water moments before, now held a glowing fish-shaped skeleton. Clearly a riff on the anglerfish, it was horribly ugly. The bones that hadn't been there a moment ago now glowed in the near dark of the tank and the thing’s teeth - Shelley’s teeth - were jagged, long, and horrible. The fish, if it could be called that, was eerily still. Adam couldn’t even see it’s guts, transparent as a jelly fish, and Shelly’s eyes were only visible because they too glowed that glow-stick green.

But there was a kind of beauty in the shape of its bones and in the slight bobbing of its light.

“Now watch this,” Kavinsky said, with some relish, pulling something small out of a canister next to the tank. He dropped it in a foot before Shelley. As it sunk down in small swooping arcs, the fish jumped forward, lightening quick, and snatched the morsel up before darting out of sight behind one of the huge rocks.

“Wow. Shelly, though?” Adam asked. Not to be stereotypical, but when he thought of things named Shelly, they were generally pretty sunny things. Beautiful women or friendly dogs. “That thing’s a monster.”

“Exactly. Named ‘em after Mary Shelley, who wrote-”

Adam caught on and they said “Frankenstein” together. 

“Right,” Kavinsky said and made as if to try and peak around the large coral and rock fixture in the middle of the tank that Shelley was hiding behind, but as even Adam couldn’t see the bioluminescent angler fish there was no way Kavinsky could. “Freaky little shit.”

“So it's a girl?”

Kavinsky shrugged in evident disinterest in the gender of his creepy skeleton pet. He flipped on the lights and then grabbed a small bag of striped yellow and red hard candies and two bright boxes. “Cough drops for Jiang. One pack for you,” he tossed the pink one at Adam, who caught it on reflex. “And one for Proko....”

Adam looked down at the neon box in his hand. It had a black stamp of a Hello Kitty head on it with a Darth Vader mask over a pair of cross bones.

“I told you I don’t do drugs.”

“You told me you didn’t _drink_ ,” Kavinsky corrected. “How are you going to know if you don’t give it a shot?”

“I’ve smoked cigarettes before.”

“Well, well you _are_ a heavy roller, aren’t you?” Kavinsky cajoled. Adam let it pass. “But these,” He held up the other pack, giving it a little shake. It was an eye-popping green with a frog stamp on it, again in the Hello Kitty style, except this one was dressed in a tan robe and held a green lightsaber. “Aren’t cigarettes.”

“They have the same function as cigarettes though, right?”

“Try ‘em and find out,” Kavinsky smirked.

 

 

 

 

 

The night ended with a movie. 

Adam was initially less than enthused by this idea, because a glance at Kavinsky’s movie wall proved that it was comprised entirely of knock off versions of _The Fast and The Furious_ or skin flicks. When Adam noted something to this extent out loud, there was a contemplative pause.

“It does look like that’s all K watches,” Jiang said frowning at the wall of DVD spines like he was only just seeing them for the first time.

“Don’t mock my decor!”

“Relax, Parrish,” Swan interjected. “All the stuff we really watch is on the hard-drive connected to the projector.”

“Not that we don’t have porn on there too,” Kavinsky said pointing with the remote and giving Adam a serious look.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Adam said with dubious irony.

To Adam’s shocked delight, they ended up watching _The Emperor’s New Groove_. 

Adam had not seen many movies. This was not from a lack of interest, necessarily. Rather from the fact he just had more important priorities. He couldn’t sacrifice the time now and his parents had never owned a dvd player when he had lived with them. The closest thing he had to compare it to were the public channel’s Saturday morning cartoons, when he was young enough to still watch them, which were always switched to football the moment his father woke up. 

They called it a night after a few episodes of _The Emperor’s New School_ and when Swan dropped Adam off in front of St. Agnes’ before returning to the Aglionby dorms, Adam was feeling cautiously optimistic. 

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday night was spent setting the ground for the Fourth.

Contrary to popular local legend, Kavinsky's parties did not spontaneously spring in to existence, leaving only charred wreckage in their wake. Actual planning went into them, along with days of prep. Clearing out portions of the fairgrounds, moving it all across town to near the drag strip was actual work. By all rights there shouldn't have been anything fun about it. But Adam was surprised to find he had enjoyed himself.

It was this: Adam arriving fresh off his shift at the warehouse to find Proko and Jiang sharing a joint on the Supra. He was pulled into a pair of the pack’s hand-clasp-half-hug greetings and declined a drag on the joint.

“The set up’s always a bitch,” Jiang said, more than happy to complain about all the things they had to do to get the venue ready for the next night’s party and how Kavinsky had been having them move cars for most of the day. Adam assumed those must have been the infinite mitsus Ronan had told them about, all that energy drained now just canon fodder and hassle. “We have to move a whole year’s worth of shit K's dreamt up _near_ the drag strip. And then tomorrow we’ll have to move it _to_ the strip.”

“Luckily,” Proko added, stealing the joint out of Jiang’s hand. “K wants to burn a lot of them this year. So it’s something to look forward to.”

“It’s gonna be hot,” Jiang said, admiring Proko’s exhalation of smoke with a distracted sort of hunger. 

It was Swan coming over and actually explaining how they wanted tomorrow night to go and what they had been working towards all day. Then when Adam asked him to tell him exactly where they had been parking all thestuff they needed for tomorrow, Swan, who apparently couldn’t remember street names, took a nearby stick and started out-lining a map of the drag strip and surrounding blocks in the dirt. 

Kavinsky showed up half way through Swan’s drawn explanation with Skov, and asked if the smoke break was over. Adam, who was still looking at the dirt grid, had an epiphany. 

It was Proko demanding of Adam with a keen suspicion: “What are you schemin?”

“Hmm?” 

“Doesn’t he look like he’s cooking something up?”

“Scheming face,” Skov agreed. 

“Spit it out, Parrish,” Kavinsky said. “You got a better idea we’d like to hear it.”

Swan handed him the stick.

It was Adam explaining how much time they would save if they didn’t horde all their goods in one spot. He pointed to a block at one end of the strip and told them they could save drive time by parking half of what they wanted to use for car chicken at this end and the other half at this end, pointing to another block opposite. And if they wanted the music and dancing here, why not pull the speakers and cars you want to burn here, he pointed to an abandoned field not far from the center of the drag strip.

“Woah-ho,” Skov said, sounding only marginally impressed. He turned to Kavinsky, a bitingly sardonic smirk on his face. “Looks like your investment is paying off.” 

“As if I make bad investments?”

“Lol, sure. Take a look at your most recent acquisitions. That’s 1 for 2. Fifty percent odds isn’t good with Morris and Rasmussen gone. You’re still one shy.”

“Someone smack that boy,” Kavinsky ordered.

Swan smacked Skov on the head with the rolled up _Fun Home_ Playbill he'd had shoved in the back of his jeans.

“Thanks, babe,” Kavinsky said, at the same time Skov protested, “What the fuck was that for?!” 

Adam wasn’t sure if he should be amused by all their antics, but Kavinsky had gone back to staring at the dirt diagram with an intent expression Adam was becoming familiar with. 

“Parrish, I do believe I owe you fries and a milkshake when we’re done here.”

“For what? This is just a different layout. Anyone could have come up with it.”

“Don’t just dismiss it like that,” Kavinsky said stepping forward, over the crude drawing. “We've been doing this for how many years? And still none of us had thought of it this way. This is gonna change the entire experience!”

“Wait, wait, wait. You’re telling me that we’ve been moving shit all day and now we’re gonna have to move it all again?” Jiang asked. “Man, if you owe him, for that, then you owe all of us Sonic.”

Kavinsky made an unconvinced noise that seemed to be entirely for show, as when all the boys chimed in with some variation of ‘yes’ and ‘you do, yes,’ he folded easily.

It was a couple more hours of prep, before Skov and Jiang led a mutiny. Their demands for the extorted payment of fried goods having gone unmet long enough. Kavinsky agreed if only because they had the morning tomorrow to finish.

It was this: K's crew and Adam all piled around an outdoor picnic table in a Sonic parking lot they had drove thirty minutes to get to. It was milkshakes all around and several things of tatter tots.

It was Swan catching his eye, after Skov made a joke that was so magnanimously stupid, and giving the most dramatic eye roll Adam had ever seen as everyone else at the table groaned. It was the pack letting Adam sit back and observe them, occasionally pulling him into the conversation, but mostly letting him watch and get his feet with them. 

It was so different from how everything was with Gansey. They all seemed unburdened by purpose. Everything was slower. None of it was life or death. The necessity, the urgency, that Adam operated his life by was put on hold. And it was strange not to immediately be working towards a goal. They were just teenagers enjoying life.

It was the caravan pulling over on the drive back to Henrietta and parking in the shoulder of the interstate. All of them hopped a fence into an empty field and lit off a few of Kavinsky’s dreamed up fireworks. Both a test to see if they would work for tomorrow and a reminder for the inhabitants of Henrietta of where they should be tomorrow if they wanted a real show.

Most of the fireworks they sent up weren’t anything special, just the big flashy kind that you couldn’t buy from any of the parking lot vendors legally. Except for the one Kavinsky had lit himself. It was actually two, the first had shot up through the sky like lightening, exploding with a crack and fizzed as an actual rainbow of sparks fell down. Kavinsky then set off the second part in a rushed crackling, which stopped when it met the falling rainbow, in a bright sustained sparkling heap, which looked quite passably like a pot of gold.

Still Adam had to turn away from the spectacle to yawn. 

It was Kavinsky calling it a night soon after and telling the others that he expected them to rally when he called tomorrow.

“Not too early though,” Jiang said, sucking on one of K’s cough drops again.

“Or we’ll mutiny,” Skov threw out.

“I was thinking seven thirty,” Kavinsky said, something wicked glinting in his eyes.

“Seven thirty?” Skov repeated incredulous. 

“If we get there before eight,” Swan explained to Adam in a lower voice, as the others began to argue for a later time. “We’ll still be climbing over the backs of the families with kids to get anything done. You coming?”

“I picked up a three to closing shift at Boyd’s,” Adam said. He had actually traded it with another co-worker, so they could have the afternoon of the holiday with their kids and Adam could clear out a whole day for Glendower, but he supposed that plan was shot now.

“I meant to the party,” Swan said with a smirk.

“Parrish, you’re riding with me!” Kavinsky said and rapped the hood of his car twice, before disappearing inside. 

“I want to see you there,” Swan said, pointing two fingers at Adam, thumb cocked out at an angle, but in a relaxed way that made it seemed like less of a kill shot and more like he was directing air passengers to the emergency exits.

“Maybe,” Adam said, opening the passenger side of the Evo.

“Not good enough,” Swan called shaking his head, still smirking.

“We’ll see,” Adam shrugged, sliding in and shutting the door.

 

 

 

 

 

“I didn’t think you’d be able to pull this off,” Adam said once they were in Kavinsky’s Evo heading back to the drag strip and Adam’s car, partially for something to say and also because it was the truth. 

“Even if I didn’t have tomorrow to dream up some last details, we’d still be a-go.”

“I guess what I mean is I can’t believe you put that much forethought into it.”

“You insult me, Parrish,” Kavinsky said, not sounding at all insulted. “You can’t really believe all the hype out there about us.”

“Well, I won’t anymore.”

“The nature of dreaming such big things into existence means I _have_ to plan ahead,” Kavinsky explained. “Let the dream place -the ley line - get its juice back before I make the next thing. With the party favors...it’s usually whatever. They never take much. But the fireworks and the cars and the speakers....the big stuff takes a dent and I have to spread it out.”

“Party favors?”

“Oh, y’know my custom pills, man. You’ve heard those dipshits at Ag talk about them, I’m sure. Brilliant high, a mellow drop, no hangover. That’s mostly the reason why people come,” Kavinsky pointed out. “Those or the fireworks. Actually, I’m pretty excited about them this year too! I dreamed up this one that first explodes in the shape of a dragon. And then the dragon blows fire out into the night sky. That will read ‘Have a killer Fourth.’” 

“Can't wait,” Adam said, not sounding thrilled.

“You’re lack of enthusiasm is killing me,” Kavinsky griped. “Really if I didn’t know this shit was awesome you’d be making me second guess myself now, man.”

“Then it’s a good thing you already know,” Adam said with no small amount of irony, before huffing a laugh. “I don’t think I’m your target audience.”

“Everyone is my target audience, Parrish,” he said in the most lascivious tone.

Adam managed not to groan, but he did look over at K in reproach. Kavinsky smirked back innocently.

“Then don’t take it personally, but I will probably be too exhausted,” Adam said, unsure why he felt the need to placate Kavinsky. “And I have work in the morning on Monday.”

“Excuses, excuses,” Kavinsky said shaking his head, but he didn’t sound put out about it. They made the rest of the drive in silence, listening to some Bulgarian song K’s radio screen claimed was curtesy of the Smoken Boyz. 

“Remember to tell Lynch he’s not invited,” Kavinsky said as he pulled along side Adam’s shit-box. This had been established sometime earlier that night between fries dipped in chocolate shakes and an excited listing of who had promised to attend tomorrow’s festivities. Adam didn’t remember which of the pack had said it first, only that it was decided that Lynch was no longer invited to the Fourth. 

But since Kavinsky and Ronan apparently weren’t on speaking terms, - _He doesn’t respond to my texts and fuck if I’m calling that shithead, Kavinsky had said with bitter disgust_ \- it fell to Adam, who ostensibly was seeing him tomorrow, to tell Ronan not to come. 

The reminder was a dismissal and with it Adam was free to run along and crash in his bed or burn himself out searching for Glendower with Gansey or really anything he wanted. But instead Adam asked, “What is it between you and Ronan suddenly?”

“Burned bridges,” Kavinsky said as cryptic as Ronan on any day but without the dark sarcasm as levity. There was something burned out and desiccated in his voice; the tone someone used to talk of houses scorched to ground or land salted. 

“No, seriously. You were obsessed with getting his attention for months and now you want nothing to do with him. What happened?”

“He didn’t tell you?”

“He told us a few details. But that was his version of what happened,” he said. It had been bothering Adam since he had seen Kavinsky’s sharp anger when he’d brought up getting back at Ronan in the clearing. Ronan’s version of last weekend’s events didn’t explain Kavinsky’s sudden one-eighty, not after being stuck on Lynch for so long. It just didn’t add up. “I imagine there’s a fair bit he left out though.”

“Lynch doesn’t have to speak for it to be a lie,” Kavinsky agreed, uncharacteristically solemn. If Adam had been wondering how close Kavinsky had been watching Ronan, who was so under Gansey’s thrall it seemed like a fool’s errand to try to lurer him away; K having Ronan’s number like this was proof he hadn’t just been pining away like a besotted idiot, blind to the truth of Ronan’s character. 

“So what happened? You try and kiss him and he reject you or something?” Adam asked, casually. If they got Kavinsky’s attraction to Ronan out at the beginning, he would be more truthful as they went along. Or so Adam hoped. Actually, Kavinsky was a master at taking a serious conversation and ending it by making an outrageously lewd or disgusting comment. Adam had left it wide open for Kavinsky to take that route here. 

Instead, Kavinsky had gone very still. He didn’t turn, but his eyes were glued to the corner of their sockets, studying Adam. Whatever he found in Adam’s countenance seemed to meet his standards for lending confidence, because he relax fractionally and after a deprecating laugh, said “No. No, I did not.”

“But you were hoping...” Adam interpreted.

“Doesn’t matter,” Kavinsky shook his head before running a hand over his mouth.

Maybe, Adam thought, they might get somewhere if he kept pushing, but he reminded himself that he and K’s deal wasn’t even a week old. It was probably too early for unearthing these kinds of hurts, regardless of his curiosity. Perhaps it was time to back off, get into his own car, and leave. Adam’s hand moved for the door handle.

“It really does matter though,” Kavinsky suddenly exploded. “Fuck!” he said under his breath. “You really care?”

Adam nodded, “Knowing your side would be helpful.”

The suspicious part of Adam’s brain told him that whatever might follow could be a ruse to try to turn him and Ronan against each other, but this outburst didn’t seem put upon at all. 

These last few days had been a crash course in Kavinsky. While he certainly couldn’t call himself an expert, Adam was a quick study and he had been studying Kavinsky. Adam needed to know if this thing would even work before tomorrow; he had been watching for any tells that he was planning to renege on their deal and, if he wasn’t, then for anything that would help Adam survive the next year. Adam understood now that the Joey K everyone knew and loathed at Ag was an inherently preformed persona. Kavinsky didn’t put as much into it when he was only with his pack. He would still hype things up to no end if he were bored or if the situation called for it, but getting Kavinsky one-on-one, like this where he was even more subdued and honest, was like falling through the looking glass. Not everything was as it seemed. 

“If we’re doing this, I need a hit,” he said and took the joint from behind his ear. After he’d taken a long drag, Kavinsky turned fully to Adam. “You want to know what happened? Alright, we were racing that first night you and Dick were out of town. He had stolen that POS D3 calls a Camaro and I had dreamed up a new, improved mitsu,” He gestured to the car they were inside. Adam had never been in an earlier version and so had no comparison, but he could admit it was nice. 

“And I blew Lynch out of the water. It was hilarious. When I circle back though, he’s already crashed into a lamppost and there’s this fucking monster going in for the kill. I shoot it, dead. Which is what he would have been if I hadn’t come back, by the way. The thing was clearly a nightmare. One of his own...and he was just sitting there.”

“You knew he was like you then?”

“No,” Kavinsky laughed. “I’d known since he had tried to ‘kill himself’ out on Ag’s front lawn last year. I was up in Proko’s room and saw him just passed out. There I am standing wondering if I should go and turn his drunk ass over on his side, when the fucker wakes up screaming. Blood pulsing from these cuts that appeared on his arms, not a blade in sight. Do you try to kill yourself from a dead sleep? No, I knew _immediately_ what he was. Me and Proko were the ones to call the ambulance.”

“Oh,” Adam intoned. Kavinsky’s sudden interest in Lynch over the last year reframing itself in his mind. 

“Yeah,” Kavinsky said, with heavy meaning. “Anyway, I brought him here and you should have seen his face. It took that boy way too long to figure it out. Of course, we went back to mine and got plastered. I told him I’d help him perfect his dreaming and he could forge Dick’s POS before he even got back to miss it.

“The next day we got to the business of dreaming the car. I worked with him all day. Until finally he got it,” Kavinsky’s voice had gone soft. “Mastering that, pulling out a whole car...is a real accomplishment. It should have been savored. Celebrated, really. But all he could think about was getting back to Dick.

“I couldn’t believe what was happening after the day we’d had. What he was saying... ‘it was never going to be you and me.’ Who even says that kind of shit! Forget that I saved his life and his friendship with Dick. I don’t understand how he couldn’t want to be ...” Kavinsky sighed, letting his hand smooth up the leather of the door. 

Adam knew Ronan had the capacity to be quite cruel. He could almost hear him spitting those words out. 

“But maybe I messed it up,” K mused. “The first rule to any dream is you gotta know what you want before you go in. What I wanted from Lynch....it was too many things at once.

“Not only could he not deliver on any of them, but I didn’t know which I wanted the most. Now that I do....it doesn’t matter. It’s just...he’s the first I’ve met who can do this too. It’s like....” Kavinsky sighed, clearly at a loss for how to explain. “Like imagine meeting somebody who had somehow made the exact deal you made with your forest, but with some other one. And you both get on good and so you share some of the tricks you’ve gained working with it, like how you have been. And at the moment your relationship should be solidified, when you should be friends, they tell you ‘thanks but fuck off.’”

“You feel used.”

“It’s not that. I could live with that,” Kavinsky laughed, hollow and wry. “I just don’t understand how he can’t even want to be friends. Like how can he not feel ....unbearably alone with this?”

Adam felt something heavy sink into him; there was a mirror of his own pain on K’s face. He had always thought of Kavinsky, when he thought of Kavinsky, as a part of his pack; never alone. Kavinsky’s apathetic fuck-boy persona negating the ability to even _feel_ lonely. But K could dream anything into existence; how could that not set him _apart_ from his friends. Make him feel _separate_ , in spite of whatever attempts he might make to the opposite. It was a shock of empathy. Adam knew that alone-ness too well not to see it reflected in Kavinsky’s slumped exhalation of smoke. 

A failed attempt to be known.

“I wish I could tell you why he does the things he does,” Adam said into the quiet.

“It’s fine,” K said, though it clearly wasn’t. He let of beat of silence pass, before taking the final hit of the joint and flicking it out the open window. When he turned back, Kavinsky appeared to be back to his usual self. Adam could almost pretend that conversation hadn’t happened. “You going to tell Dick Three tomorrow?”

Adam nodded.

“Think you’ll make it to the Fourth?”

Adam shrugged. Even after all the work they put into setting up the drag strip, Adam wasn’t sold on the idea that he’d want to spend time he technically didn’t have to with Kavinsky and his cronies at a glorified substance party.

“Well, let me know and I’ll dream you up some Shirley Temples.”

“That’d be mighty kind of you,” Adam said, rolling his Henrietta accent as much as his eyes and climbed out of the car. 

“You have to stay hydrated at my parties, Parrish!” Kavinsky called to him as Adam unlocked his own car. “You’ll see. One way or another!”

 

 

 

 

 

Adam distractedly thought about his conversation with Kavinsky for the whole drive home and all through his shower. 

It wasn’t that he felt sorry for him. Adam so hated pity directed towards his own circumstances that he consciously avoided that emotion in himself with others. It was more that he now understood something vital about him.

That didn’t mean he liked K now. 

Before all this, he had disliked Kavinsky on principle. In practice, Adam had been largely indifferent. Kavinsky hadn’t bothered with him and he had been glad of it, because such entitlement and flagrant waste went against everything Adam stood for. But that was before certain facts came to light, before he had actually held a conversation with Kavinsky. Adam now understood why Aglionby held little interest. How could it when you could invent species and literally make money? The drugs, the parties, the races, all the adrenaline highs Kavinsky went after seemed more like distractions from the inherent isolation of such a gift. 

Adam didn’t fool himself by thinking all of Kavinsky’s problematic qualities covered deep scars, but the explanation had proved that there was something going on underneath the surface. 

Kavinsky’s thing with Ronan too was enlightening. He had gone into that topic suspicious and guarded, but left feeling more empathy than Adam felt comfortable with towards Kavinsky. Of course, Ronan didn’t owe Kavinsky anything, but at the same time Adam didn’t think he had to be such a shitbag either. It was hard to believe that Kavinsky, of all people, had cut himself on Ronan, but Adam decided that had to have been what happened. If only because, while Kavinsky certainly had something to gain by lying, Adam was ultimately unconvinced that K was a good enough actor to fake that evening’s confession. 

 

 

 

 

 

act iii: but what do you loose to concede?

 

 

 

 

 

It was past ten by the time Adam got into his car. He could hear the chorus of St. Agnes' flock singing their opening hymn. It wasn't that he was deliberately timing when he told Gansey to avoid Ronan. There really wasn't a point to that. Ronan would confront him the moment he found out either way. This was just the first moment he’d had since Wednesday morning that hadn’t been working or occupied by Kavinsky. This wasn’t a conversation Adam wanted to have over the phone or, given that it was likely to be lengthy, one that he could even have before or after work. Going to Monmouth now however, it would be easier to make Gansey see the sense of what Adam had done if Ronan wasn't there to flame his ire.

Not that he thought telling Gansey under any circumstance would be an easy experience.

Kavinsky, for reasons of his own, was making use of the dream phone and had been sending Adam a barrage of text messages since before he started getting dressed. They veered from: _you still gonna tell dick about our arrangement today?_ to the petty: _don’t forget to tell lynch he’s uninvited_ to the more bizarre _obvs you don't have to come tonight, but i want you to know i bought the stuff for your shirley temples at a STORE_ and then _#nodreamsoda_.

Adam had been ignoring the messages, preoccupied with debating exactly how he was going to tell Gansey about this deal when his phone chimed again. He checked the message when he pulled up to a stop sign.

_if you tell em and come, you'll probs see a fight_

Adam scoffed, wondering exactly what Kavinsky was on if he thought that would entice him. But then Adam considered Kavinsky's train of thought closer. 

_if i tell gansey today, ronan will come tonight to fight you whether he's invited or not_

_true_

_and you would fight him_

_i wouldn’t turn one down_

_i can’t tell if you are stupid or jsut hate him so much that it won’t matter if he trounced your ass as long as you got a few punches in_

_well it’s not the first_

_so what you’re saying is i should just not tell them today_

K didn’t immediately reply and Adam frowned.

_well?_ Adam texted when it was clear Kavinsky wasn’t going to say anything more. It seemed an inevitable conclusion that two dreamers in a fight would pull out dream weapons. Adam had stepped between them when he did entirely to avoid such a confrontation and Kavinsky, no matter how much he might not want to see Ronan, would make an exception if only to punch Ronan in the face. Though why anything other than ego, and maybe a cunning dream object, would tell Kavinsky he would win a fight with Ronan was beyond Adam. 

_are you offering to LIE to dick to save my party parrish?_

Adam blinked. That hadn’t explicitly been his intention; but when Kavinsky spelled it out like that, it was apparent he had. A weird guilty feeling ran through him, but before Adam could even begin to consider how to take it back, Kavinsky sent another two texts.

_just tell him. as much as i think that's hilarious, tip toeing around d^3 will get annoying when he comes banging down your door wondering if you died of exhaustion_  
_oh hey can you take a video_

_fuck off_ , Adam replied and then switched the phone on silent. He really hoped Gansey could keep a hold of Ronan tonight.

 

 

 

 

 

“Gansey,” Adam greeted after he’d hefted the door open. With the break-in a few weeks ago, Adam didn’t know why Gansey still hadn’t fixed the lock. Henrietta had a small town feel that Gansey liked, but it was a false sense of security. Especially now. 

“Hey,” Gansey said surprised by Adam’s appearance and happy about it. He had been hunched over on his bed, books, maps, and notes spread all around him like some didactic solar system. 

“Noah around yet?”

Gansey shook his head, expression turning into something cross and worried, then he glanced back at Adam. “He’s not my only friend who’s acting ghostly. I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever.”

“It hasn’t even been a week,” Adam said, attempting for wry, but knowing it came out more exhausted. He understood how Gansey felt. It had been a long week though, starting with the mess at Gansey’s parents, Persephone’s training, doing what he could for Cabeswater, and the whole deal with Kavinsky.

“I thought you said that you would be free after four on Friday,” Gansey said. “We waited. Ronan went up and pounded on your door and everything.”

Seeing the Pig pull into St. Agnes had grated on Adam’s conscious for a good portion of his first evening with K’s crew. He really should have called Gansey and told him he couldn’t meet up. But then he would have had to explain why he needed to take a raincheck and he didn’t have the time to get into that then. Adam always seemed to need more time. He sighed, “I had to take care of some things.”

“For Cabeswater?”

“Yeah,” Adam said, because that was technically true. Gansey was shuffling a stack of notes up. 

Adam watched, restless. He hadn’t been this uncomfortable in Monmouth since he had come over in the wake of their first real argument, when Gansey had asked him to move in the first time and Adam had seen white. He just didn’t know how to bring this up but every second that passed without Adam telling Gansey about Kavinsky felt damning. It had been so much easier when Gansey and the other’s had seen Adam make the deal with Cabeswater.

“I want you to have a look over these maps before you leave,” Gansey said pointing to a large manila folder.

“Alright,” Adam said. He was going to tell Gansey. Adam was going to take a breath and tell him. It was just that he knew that this would change everything and he didn’t want it to. Before he could stop himself Adam asked instead, “Hey, what are you doing later tonight?”

“Blue suggested we drive out and find a peak or scenic outlook over the valley to see some fireworks. She says she knows a few places, but we have to get there early or all the good parking spots will be taken.”

“Is Ronan going too?”

“We’re all going?” Gansey said, though the sentence ended as more of a question than he had originally intended, and he glanced at Adam briefly.

“Just as long as you make sure he doesn’t go to Kavinsky’s Fourth.”

“I’m sure he wants to,” Gansey said with some humor, not looking up again from whatever note he was adding to his journal. “But if he goes, he’s not gonna _ask_. I don’t _think_ he will go with things tense like this. But, I wouldn’t be surprised if he went purely because of that. Kavinsky is going to needle him until he shows regardless,” he said darkly, before continuing in a tone which sounded congenial enough, but one, that if you knew Gansey at all, you’d know was pure distaste, “He wants to be ‘entertained.’”

"Not by Ronan anymore," Adam said, casually; matter of factly. “Kavinsky uninvited him.”

Gansey paused in his annotation. He looked up at Adam, taken aback, and asked, “How would you know that?”

"He told me."

"...When?" 

"Friday evening," Adam said. He had never seen Gansey’s features arrange themselves into that particular expression before. Or, maybe Adam had, he just had never seen it from this angle; had never been on the receiving end of it.

“You just said you were doing something for Cabeswater. How would you have been doing something for Cabeswater and run into Kavinsky-" Gansey started to question before suddenly breaking off, face morphing with realization. Then Gansey carefully, apprehensively, demanded, "Adam. What did you do?” 

“I got Kavinsky to agree to stop draining the ley line,” Adam said.

Gansey blinked and Adam could see his mind ticking along at its usual high speed clip: Ronan had said Kavinsky was an immovable on this. He wouldn't stop if the world was burning down around him. Whatever Adam had said to him must have been pretty convincing. Whatever Adam had _traded_ must have been worth more than extraneous income and drugs galore. Adam could see the exact moment something horrible clicked.

“In exchange for what?” Gansey asked, voice pitched low. 

“He wants me to run with him.”

“You told him no, I hope,” Gansey said, but there was no hope in his voice.

Adam didn't say anything, cocking his head to the side. Gansey already had the answer. He was just hoping he wouldn’t have to face it.

Gansey let out a harsh breath and rubbed his face with his hand, up under his glasses, pulling them off with the other while he massaged his eyes. He let his hands fall to his lap and met Adam’s uneasy gaze.

“Adam,” Gansey exhaled, looking sick. Revulsion spilling over his implacable features with a quiet echo of his agonized ‘why’ from the night Adam bound himself to Cabeswater and woke the ley line. There was the same timbre of fear in his voice, the same incomprehension, and what Adam could have sworn was annoyance. But whether this was directed towards Adam or his own inability to understand his motives he couldn’t decide. Still Gansey's disappointment slid home, exactly where he knew it would fit. 

But it was Gansey’s disgust that pissed Adam off. He had solved their problem. It was his life and he shouldn’t be made to feel like he needed to consult Gansey every time he made a major decision.

"And what were you going to do Gansey?” Adam asked, unable to keep the frustration from his voice. “It wasn't like you had any great ideas for how to get him to stop other than letting Ronan handle it. How was that working?"

“Ronan said he couldn’t get through to him-”

“Right, because Ronan is so good at _talking_ to people,” Adam said. He was cold now. He had to be. The anger was right there. Demanding to be _used_. He had to be careful. Even if he now knew what had caused his fugue state last weekend, Adam still didn’t want a repeat of that argument he’d had with Gansey. “When I broached draining the line with Kavinsky, he had no idea there was even an issue to begin with. Let alone that _he_ was the cause.”

“What with Mr. Grey and the other killers, I apologize for not making _Kavinsky_ my main focus and over-seeing this personally.”

“From all your talk about how engaging with Kavinsky on his terms is trouble, this was headed towards someone getting hurt. I don’t see where else this could have gone if I hadn’t done something, unless ...I don’t know, you planned to kill him,” Adam shrugged.

“Or if we were to hand him over to the collector’s men.”

“I know you don't like him, but you do realize he's a human being?”

“It's not a viable option anyway,” Gansey shrugged, “Kavinsky knows about Ronan.”

“As if that’s the only reason. Come on, Gansey! No one deserves that.”

“Kavinsky made his bed willingly.”

Adam didn't know what Kavinsky had done to personally offend Gansey, but being an annoying drug dealer shit did not constitute being handed over to the Gray Man’s employer, especially not when there were so much worse people in Henrietta. People Gansey knew personally.

“Whatever happened to let the punishment fit the crime? I don't think getting turned into a museum piece slash science experiment really fits bullying, street racing and drug dealing. It’s not like he murders children-” 

“That you know of,” Gansey cut in churlishly.

“-or beats his kids,” Adam finished. 

The silence that followed was enormous. 

Gansey’s mouth slammed shut as he processed Adam’s words and he actually went a bit red. Adam felt some satisfaction at being able to get that point across even if he had to manipulate his own horrible past to get it through Gansey’s thick skull. He wasn't happy about it though.

“I don't understand,” Gansey said, with the tone of someone who was really trying. “You _just_ got out from under your father’s roof and can actually focus on classes. And now...”

Adam thought of the wasted hours spent working in the factory or at the body shop, the infrequent full nights of sleep, and wasn't convinced that he could now focus fully on classes, but that wasn’t Gansey’s point and Adam knew it. “‘And now' what, Gansey? What do you think he's gonna do? Really?”

“Distract you,” Gansey said, throwing his hands in the air. “How about get you in trouble on purpose? Expelled? At the very least you should be concerned with what hanging out with a bunch of slackers will do to your grade point.”

“If that were all I cared about, I'd be better friends with Cheng,” Adam said.

“Ha,” he said without humor. Gansey wasn’t a bad student, but Aglionby was not his only priority. Certainly not his _top_ priority. “I just don’t understand how you could even consider- why would you want to spend your very limited free time with people you hate?”

Adam felt his jaw tick, more than having given it the permission to do so. 

Gansey, though endlessly inquisitive, tended to presume an awful lot when he thought he’d figured a person out. Adam brushed off his own objection that he felt hate was too strong of a word. After a couple evenings with Kavinsky and his cronies, all Adam could say was their indolence was more baffling than anything else. 

No, what irked him was Gansey’s idea that Adam’s wants ever came into his and Kavinsky's deal. 

They hadn't. Not really. Of course he had known trading his free time with Gansey’s group to Kavinsky and his pack would be uncomfortable, unpleasant, quite likely painful, and not something he had ever _wanted_. But the acknowledgment of these facts were not a reason to break off the deal, merely annoyances that would be borne as he had with so many others in his life.

Adam, as a point of survival, could not cater to his moment-to-moment whims. He had to stick to his plan. He didn’t have the privilege of prioritizing his desires over gritty, mundane or out right demoralizing tasks, if he ever wanted to get out of Henrietta.

Though he knew it would all be worth it if he succeeded, examining what he was missing was miserable. He often made a conscious effort to not think about it, especially not if anyone else was around. Somehow it was worse that Gansey had brought it to the fore of his mind; Gansey, for whom sacrifice, everyday, unglamorous sacrifice, was completely foreign. Adam wasn’t sure if Gansey even knew what true sacrifice was, if he knew the hard truth of it. It was obvious he knew nothing of the daily grunge, unheroic, dead tired reality. The exhaustion of having to skip a full night’s sleep again because working full time and going to school didn’t factor in moments for the homework he was expected to accomplished for the next day, regardless of his home situation. Those unsung battles that did not go down in legend and were soon forgotten by everybody but those who were forced to give something up.

If Gansey really knew, he would never ask such ignorant questions. 

“Well, we don't all have the luxury of doing only what we want, Gansey.”

Gansey sighed, “That's not what I meant.”

“That's what I heard.” Adam had already sacrificed so much for this, it seemed foolish not to give a little more when they were so close. 

“Why would you accept this?”

“We needed Kavinsky to stop draining the ley line,” Adam repeated. 

Adam had no intention of telling Gansey exactly how his arm had been twisted into this arrangement. Kavinsky was right. Ultimatums were not acceptable unless you were willing to loose everything. If Gansey was freaking out about this _perceived_ betrayal, Adam didn’t want to know what his reaction would have been to the fact that Kavinsky had intended to burn down Cabeswater. 

Perhaps, if he knew these had been Adam’s only two choices, Gansey would be more understanding. He might be able to see how this would be the desired choice. But Adam would never tell him. His pride wouldn’t let Gansey see him out-foxed by Kavinsky, in the same way K wouldn’t tell his pack why Adam was really running with them all of a sudden. So, Adam knew he’d be lucky if he and Gansey’s friendship survived this. Maybe their friendship would live, but it would never be the same, even if Gansey never found out that Adam had accidentally gambled _Cabeswater’s existence_. It was never going to be like it was before last April.

“Not like this.”

“Then like what? I find it hard to believe you could have come up with something better,” Adam pointed out. “Kavinsky and I only even reached this deal because our negotiations hit an impasse. And short of having Ronan-”

“Maybe we should do that,” Gansey interrupted, something ungiving in his tone.

“Do what?” Adam asked, baffled by this turn in their conversation. 

“Switch you for Ronan.”

Adam’s brows furrowed. That had come from so far left field he had to think about it for another moment before he fully caught Gansey’s meaning. He could see how Gansey would grudgingly see that arrangement as optimal. Better Ronan, who sometimes associated with Kavinsky by choice, than Adam. Better Ronan, who was unshakably Gansey’s. Better Ronan, who didn't need Aglionby to make his life. Better Ronan, who didn’t care if he failed every class; as if Kavinsky's crew and their bad habits would wear off on Adam. 

Adam wasn't sure how he felt about Gansey even suggesting letting Ronan take his place. But he knew in his bones he would not accept this easy rooking of chess pieces. Adam had made this deal. He had been the one to agree to its terms. As Gansey had just said, Adam had made his bed. He wouldn’t make Ronan lie in it. More’s the case, having talked to Kavinsky, Adam was fairly certain he wouldn’t go for it.

“I don't think that's an option any more,” Adam finally said. 

“It’s worth trying, at least,” Gansey said. “Isn't that what you did? Ronan said negotiating wasn’t an option and yet you just went ahead and talked Kavinsky into stopping.”

“Ronan didn't make this deal. I wouldn't put him in that position.”

“He’d do it if you asked.”

“If _I_ ask?” Adam repeated incredulous. It was Gansey who was the one who held Ronan’s leash, not Adam. 

“Yes.”

“I won't ask though,” Adam said, still utterly confused and too uncomfortable with the concept to even care to ponder it another moment. “That's the point.”

“Adam-”

“I don't even think Kavinsky would accept him.”

Gansey shook his head bitter and rue, “This is what Kavinsky wants. I hate playing into his hand, but...”

“I don't think.... this isn’t what he planned at all,” Adam said hesitant. “He's actually angry with Ronan.”

“Then he just wants to punish him. Sadistic asshole,” Gansey said, the last more to himself than Adam. “Trust me, he's just trying to rile us up.”

“Maybe,” Adam allowed. “I still don't think it's a good idea. Especially if you propose it.”

“Why? Kavinsky is obsessed with him.”

“Ronan pissed him off royally though and if you get involved and try and force him to switch us, I have a feeling he’ll dig his heels in,” Adam said, laying out the obvious first trying to figure out the best way to phrase the next part; that hyper curiosity in Kavinsky’s hollowed eyes that had focused on only Adam in the clearing. “Besides, I’m pretty sure I caught his interest.”

Gansey frowned at him for several seconds before asking, disbelieving, “You told him about Cabeswater?”

It was an obvious jump; but Adam still resented that Gansey made it, as if Adam had nothing to offer beyond his connection to the mystical place or as a way to get under Gansey or Ronan’s skin. 

“He found out inadvertently. Cabeswater had a vested interest in how our negotiations went,” Adam said remembering the sudden chill that fell over them when the forest understood Kavinsky’s threat, the high wind, the horrible acid panic that had run through him. He blinked bringing himself back to Monmouth and Gansey. “The trees told me to agree to it, actually.”

“Cabeswater told you to?" Gansey asked, somehow looking even more betrayed. 

“Yeah.”

“And you trust him to keep his side of the bargain?”

“I guess we’ll know when Noah gets back,” Adam said, though it sounded like he meant to say _if_ Noah gets back. 

The only sound in the loft was the quiet whisk-whisk-whisk of the double fans hanging from the ceiling. They hardly did anything to cool the warehouse down though. They barely even brought Gansey’s papers to a flutter. It was too hot for this conversation. Sweat was sticking uncomfortably at the small of Adam’s back.

“How’s this even going to work now?” Gansey asked, ashen. 

“What do you mean?”

“Say Kavinsky keeps his end of the bargain and you keep yours, when are we going to search if you’re supposed to ‘run’ with him?”

“Sundays.”

“What?”

“I’ll be able to help with actually looking on Sundays,” Adam said.

Gansey stood and rubbed at the furrow of his brow with his knuckles. “Promise me you won’t do this again.”

“Promise I won’t do what?”

“That you won’t go off on your own. Again. If you had only come to us and-”

“I did this because no one else was doing anything and Cabeswater wouldn’t stop-” Adam cut himself off. “Some one had to do something, Gansey. I just happened to be the one with the least time to waste.” 

“We would have found a way. Together.”

Adam kicked Gansey’s mattresses. The top one jumped and landed askew. _Action before thought._ Adam held himself rigidly still. “That’s bullshit.”  


“Well, it’s hard to prove if you keep running off to implement your own solutions without consulting anyone else,” Gansey said voice cold and so, so disappointed.

“It doesn't matter,” Adam said, biting down hard on the inside of his cheek, checking his anger. “It's done and you have what we need to move forward.”

Gansey shook his head looking at Adam with a mixture of fond annoyance and that disappointment, “I don't have everything I need though.”

Adam took a deep breath and shoved his hands far into his pockets. “I’m still here.”

“Are you?”

“I’m here now, aren’t I?”

“But for how long?” Gansey asked. “If you keep giving portions of yourself away? What's going to be left?”

Adam took a short breath, staring at Gansey, caught. Before he blinked, pulling himself back in, resigning himself.

“Find your king, Gansey. Then it will be worth it.”

Gansey didn’t so much as sigh as fold in, one arm crossed over himself the other pinching the bridge of his nose. 

Adam glanced at his wrist watch. He still had several hours before his shift started at Boyd’s, but they weren’t going to be able to move passed this today. And rehashing the same argument wouldn’t get them anywhere. Despite having anticipated a fight, Adam’s gut was a swirling black mass of ash and cinder. Arguing like this with Gansey would always leave him scorched and numb, like getting caught in the wake of a flash fire. He turned to leave.

“Adam, wait," Gansey called out. He picked up the cramped file folder he’d gestured to earlier and hopped off his bed. "Take this."

Silently, Adam took the folder and left Monmouth. 

 

 

 

 

 

Around two there was an ardent pounding at his door. Adam, who had gotten started on the summer reading to avoid perusing Gansey’s latest notes, was surprised it had taken this long. Ronan must have eaten a long lunch with Matthew and Declan.

“You made a deal with Kavinsky,” Ronan said, pushing passed Adam once he had opened the door. It hadn’t been a question but an accusation. “You shouldn't have done that.”

Adam crossed his arms and leaned against the wall; observing but not saying anything. Sometimes it was easier to beat Ronan by turning his own game back around on him.

“This was my problem to deal with, Parrish,” he continued, beginning to pace Adam’s tiny room. “You don't know what you've got yourself into.”

“Did I ruin your grand plan?”

Ronan sneered. 

Adam, merely made a gesture indicating he was still waiting for Ronan’s reply. When it was apparent no answer was forth coming, he said, “Then were just gonna have to agree to disagree on that.”

“I would have figured something out. I don't need you to solve my problems, Parrish, And this,” Ronan said nastily, gesturing toward Adam, “isn't even a solution.”

“Yeah, well mine didn’t involve punching Kavinsky in the face,” Adam pointed out.

“That would have been the least of his worries,” Ronan said, with no undo menace. “And it’s not like Gansey would have had a problem if I took Kavinsky for this,” Ronan continued, factual and untroubled.

“Well, I would. Kavinsky wouldn’t take that lying down.”

Something flitted through Ronan's eyes, even as he snarled, “You’re operating on a means-justify-ends process. Why shouldn't the rest of us?”

“My means don't entail violence.”

“You're a fucking hypocrite, Parrish.”

“What? No, I'm not.”

“Really? Are you so blind? I seem to remember Whelk not walking out of the forest that night,” Ronan said fixing Adam with a hard, but un-judging stare. “And I have a really hard time believing you just talked to Kavinsky to get him to agree to this fucked up scheme.”

Adam supposed that he _had_ used the _threat_ of violence to make Kavinsky cooperate and vice-a-versa, but no one actually got hurt. Not like if Ronan had gone after him. 

“At least I asked him. At least I told him why we needed him to stop. What the hell did you do?” Adam demanded. “You told Gansey you talked to Kavinsky about all this, but he was totally clueless when I confronted him.”

“He wasn’t going to get it,” Ronan said

“Oh, he gets it, but it’s only cause I took the time to lay it all out for him and gave him a chance to get it.”

“You mean a chance to get one over on you.”

“You expected full on capitulation? That’s not how things work in reality!”

Ronan made a disgusted face and kept pacing. 

“How’s Gansey?” Adam asked, after an uncomfortable several seconds of silence.

“He's hysterical,” Ronan said, spitting out one of the leather straps that he had begun chewing on. “He thinks this is all his fault.”

“It's not,” Adam said, exhausted by his own seemingly bottomless well of anger. “If Gansey’s gonna shame me for making this deal in the first place, he certainly doesn’t get to take the credit.”

“It’s more like you wouldn’t have needed to make the deal if it weren’t for him,” Ronan explained, watching Adam closely. 

“He didn't trade me for his king or whatever he’s thinking.”

“This has nothing to do with your deal with Cabeswater? That has nothing to do with Glendower?”

“He's mad I didn't get his sign off. Gansey is just pissed that I didn't have the patience to _convince_ him this was the best course of action.” 

“Come on, man. You know that's not why.”

“It really doesn't matter _why_ he's mad,” Adam shrugged. “I knew he wasn't going to be happy with me when I did it, but what other options did I have?”

“Speaking of...Gansey wants you to reconsider you and I switching places in your deal again,” Ronan said, the words seemingly drawn from his mouth by Gansey.

“You and I both know that won't go over well,” Adam pointed out. “I hope you told him that.”

Ronan shook his head, “I could make K see.”

“You don't really believe that?” Adam asked, incredulous actually looking at Ronan. “Kavinsky is genuinely angry with you.”

Ronan silence was more of an effective shrug than most Adam had seen in his life. “You spend a couple days with him and you’re an expert?”

“It doesn’t take a genius to see you’ve hurt him,” Adam said.

“Exactly,” Ronan agreed. “Now he's screwing with you to get back at me by fucking Gansey.”

Kavinsky couldn’t be interested in Adam in his own right. Couldn’t want him for any other reason than to fuck with Ronan. Adam didn’t think he could really say anything though, because he had thought the exact same thing. Furthermore, who would want to be anything to Joseph Kavinsky? Still it was one thing to think it about yourself, it was quite another to have it be said by the one person who he could supposedly depend on to always tell the truth. 

Adam expected concern. The deal was unorthodox and shitty. That however was the nature of compromise, it seemed, leaving everyone unsatisfied, but at least letting them move forward. 

It wasn’t the concern that bothered Adam so much. He knew it came from the right place. But Adam had seventeen years of the world telling him he wasn’t worth taking note of, he didn’t need Ronan Lynch telling him it too. Gansey had implied something similar. They were his friends and yet couldn’t fathom his use to somebody else beyond his connection to them. 

Gansey was always saying that Adam was too suspicious, verging on paranoid, but here he and Ronan were concocting these conspiracy theories, which if Adam were being honest seemed to expect a bit much from Kavinsky. 

But Adam knew Kavinsky could plan ahead now. He wasn’t stupid and he certainly did have a bone to pick with Ronan. Maybe _Adam_ was the one being foolish. Maybe Kavinsky _was_ wielding him like a weapon, directing him back at Gansey, targeting his soft spots and Adam, by agreeing to this, was letting him. Maybe-

“How'd you even get in touch with him anyway?” Ronan asked, breaking Adam out of his thoughts. 

“How do you think?" Adam returned nodding his head towards the rectangular shape in Ronan's front pocket.

“What? My phone?”

“You didn't wonder why he stop texting you all of a sudden?”

Ronan looked genuinely confused as he pulled out his phone and really looked at the last of the messages in Kavinsky’s thread. “You fucking bastard, Parrish.”

“He doesn't want you to come tonight by the way,” Adam said. “I did this so no one would get hurt and I'd appreciate if you respected that and just spent the evening with Gansey and Blue.”

“Are you going?”

“I'm going to work,” Adam said, angrily pocketing his keys. 

“Don't do this to us, Adam,” Ronan said, stepping in front of him.

“I'm not doing anything _to_ you,” Adam said, acerbically. “I'm doing it _for_ us. Besides, I'm the one who will have to carry this day in and out.”

“We'll have to carry your absence.”

Adam considered that it may just be worse for Gansey to imagine all the horrible things Kavinsky’s pack were doing to him instead of the banal reality, which was Adam just sitting with them as they played Mario Kart and smoked for the third afternoon in a row.

“I have to go to work.”

 

 

 

 

 

It was close to ten by the time Adam parked near the drag strip. For service industry workers and practically no one else, a benefit of Henrietta being such a small town was that few places were open late. The body shop had closed at nine which was convenient on a night like this. The sky was only just then thinking about getting dark. It gave him ample time to drive somewhere to see the festivities, if he so desired.

Earlier that day, he had replied to Kavinsky’s texts demanding to know the outcome of his talk with Gansey and Lynch. Adam didn’t have anything to say other than they had both gone about as well as Kavinsky could have guessed and if he could please not send so many texts while Adam was at work.

There had been a long pause, so much so that Adam was about to clock back on after lunch, when Kavinsky had ended the thread with something that was likely meant to be placating, but just came across as weird, about how he was still welcome at their fourth bash if he wasn’t too tired after his shift.

Adam wasn’t in the mood for a party. He really wasn't in the mood for Kavinsky’s particular brand of cajoling camaraderie. But he also wasn't in the mood for sleep. Despite being mentally drained from the day, Adam’s body was wide awake. He was wired. 

Adam waded into the party like someone unsure if they liked the temperature of the stream they were stepping into. He moved in slowly, giving himself time to adjust. Drunken revelry had never been his scene. His father had ensured he would never want to touch alcohol for as long as he lived and there never seemed to be much point in spending time with inebriates if he himself were sober.

“Parrish, we weren’t sure you’d make it!” Proko greeted, he and Swan materializing out of the throngs of people like apparitions. 

“Swan,” Adam said as he was pulled into the pack’s hand-clasp-half-hug of a greeting. “Proko.”

“Alright?”

“Fine,” Adam dismissed.

“Sure, you are,” Swan snorted. “Need anything?”

“This man needs a joint,” Proko said. 

“You are pretty tense,” Swan agreed, tentatively.

“I’m fine,” Adam said again. 

“Well, it’s lucky I ran into you,” Proko said, nodding to Swan, who in turn nodded to Adam, before continuing off in the direction he and Proko were initially headed. “Walk with me and I’ll take you to K.”

Something in his tone of voice made Adam half worried Prokopenko was going to put an arm around his shoulder and draw him into some secret confidence, but what Proko actually said was worse. 

“I don't know what deal you've got with K,” he started, still walking casually through the partiers. 

Adam nearly faltered at the word choice. 

“He hasn't given us anything beyond your explanation on Friday. But you should know he's not someone to fuck around with.”

“We're not-”

“Frankly I don't care,” Proko waved his hand, dismissive. “K's a big boy and I shouldn't have to tell you he sure as fuck can ruin your life if you screw him over.” He had stopped walking and turned to fully look Adam in the eye. “Just know that if it comes to that, we won't be far behind to finish the job.”

It felt like Proko’s steel grey irises were augers boring into Adam’s very soul. There was something dangerous and cold in them. Something _off_. 

“Understand?”

“Yeah, I got it,” Adam said. “Though it hardly seems fair, if he screws me over.”

“Oh,” Proko smiled rather nastily, “I think you could work something out. Now, let’s get you a drink.”

“I don’t-”

“I _know_ , Parrish. K got you a foo-foo drink and a coffee,” Proko said, continuing to head off through the party.

“I don’t need a coffee...” Adam grumbled as he followed. Eventually, Proko brought him to a small clearing where Kavinsky was holding court, sitting on the hood of his Evo like a throne.

“Parrish,” Kavinsky greeted, jubilant, eyes hidden behind his white shades. “Glad you could make it. Proko, Jiang was looking for you.”

“Yeah, he texted me,” Proko said. “Do you have another bag of those ones with the laughing emoji on them?”

“There should be two in the center console,” Kavinsky said, taking another sip from the red solo cup he was holding. Proko ducked in the passenger side door and Kavinsky turned back to Adam. “Parrish, relaaaaaaaax. Take a load off.”

Kavinsky gestured to the other side of the hood of his car, clearly expecting Adam to make use of it as a seat like he was. Adam hesitated briefly. He was apprehensive of Kavinsky starting an inquisition of his afternoon, but if nothing else, it would give him a better view of the fireworks when they started. Adam hauled himself on the hood of the mitsu.

Moments later, Proko emerged shoving a bag of pills into the front pocket of his jacket and two bottles of beer in hand, “Thanks.”

“Spread the cheer, man!” Kavinsky called after Proko. Once he was out of sight, Kavinsky wasted no time and asked, “So how’d it go?” 

“I don't want to talk about it,” Adam said, looking out over the crowd. He could feel Kavinsky’s eyes on him even through the shades.

“Perfect timing anyway,” Kavinsky shrugged and smacked another cigarette shaped box in his hands. “Fireworks in 25.”

“Why do you keep giving these to me?” Adam asked, turning the package over in his hands. Again it was pink with a Darth Vader Hello Kitty inked on the front.

“You didn't open the last pack, did you?”

“No.” It was still shoved in the back pocket of his other pair of jeans. He eyed the crossed bones behind Hello Kitty’s mask. Adam hadn’t been tempted then, but he also hadn’t just spent the day fighting with his two best friends. 

Adam hadn’t smoked since before he got into Aglionby. It had never been more than the occasional cigarette, but he had quit even that when he made up his mind to apply. He hadn't touched them through the entire application process, even though it had been a struggle. He could have used the nicotine to soothe his nerves as he battled the Aglionby scholarship process and prepared for his admittance interview. It had been a smart decision though because when he did get in, Adam needed the money for tuition anyway.

Now, he was sitting next to Joseph Kavinsky at one of his parties, which Adam never had an interest in going to before, after ten o’clock on a work night, with his body still buzzing with a restless energy he couldn’t explain. 

“This isn't a substance party,” Adam pointed out. 

“No, it's like all of those rolled into one and set on fire,” Kavinsky grinned. “Try one and if you think it’s shit, I swear I’ll stop shoving them at you.”

“You would just dream up a different kind till you found one I liked,” Adam frowned, but he was already breaking the seal and peeling back the foil. Adam pulled one out. It looked like any other cigarette he’d seen, except for the light pink filter and the blue line of ink.

“A new version every Sunday,” Kavinsky mused, digging in his cargo pants pocket. “Too much suspense for me.”

“These aren’t laced with meth, are they?” Adam lifted it to his nose to see if dream tobacco smelled different. It wasn’t that he thought it would be good business sense, because after all what was money to some one who could just dream up a fresh stack of hundreds? It was more about power and control and whatever reason Kavinsky might want Adam in his thrall.

“Don’t be boring,” Kavinsky frowned, irritated, tossing a lighter in his lap. “Why would I dream up shit like that?”

Adam, not entirely comforted, put the cigarette between his lips and flicked the flame of the lighter over the tip. Inhaling, he took a long drag and the odd combination of cardamon and tobacco smoke filled his lungs. Maybe it was just that he had quit years ago, but this was better than any smoke he'd ever had before.

Adam took another drag and a wonderful tingling shot down his limbs. It wasn't exactly like he'd just come, but the buzzing in his bones said that it was close. Absence didn't make the heart grow _this_ fond. 

He turned feeling Kavinsky's eyes on him behind those shades. Kavinsky was trying, valiantly, and failing, miserably to keep a face splitting grin off his lips. Literally bursting with pride. 

Definitely not just time then. 

“God, K,” Adam chuckled, laying all the way back on the hood. “Good job.”

Kavinsky just laughed delightedly and clapped him on the shoulder.

Skov appeared what could have been minutes or hours later—except the fireworks hadn’t started so it had to have been less— telling them an grey E30 had just parked. 

K placed a hand above Adam’s knee, bringing him back to earth. “Anything I should know?”

“Like I said, went as well as expected.”

“So shitty,” K translated and pulled his shades down just enough to look Adam in the eye. “What are they coming here with?”

It wasn't hard to see why Kavinsky wore those sunglasses all the time. Tacky as they were, without them he was even more off-putting. Kavinsky’s unguarded stare was unnerving enough, irises as black as the pupils and unfathomable in the darkness of the drag strip, when it wasn’t being paired with exactly _how_ he was looking at Adam right now. He was so thrown off by Kavinsky’s proximity, by the _intent_ in his eyes, that it was almost like someone else was answering when Adam said, “Gansey wants to trade Ronan for me in our deal.”

Kavinsky’s eyebrows rose. 

Adam swallowed. He couldn’t tell if Kavinsky was impressed or offended by Gansey’s presumption, but Adam was unable to look away. There was something about having Kavinsky’s unfettered attention on him, here in the middle of his biggest party of the year, with Ronan and Gansey on their way, that made Adam feel like he been rooted in place. Like he was an ancient ash, who’d taken root there centuries ago and he’d still be in that exact place for hundreds more. “I told him that you wouldn't want to.”

“Really?” K asked dubious and a bit wry. 

This was, after all, what Kavinsky had wanted for months: Ronan offering himself on a platter. If Kavinsky was only doing this to get under Gansey’s skin, it really shouldn't matter which of them he had. Forcing Gansey to come here groveling to trade his most loyal dog for some trailer trash was already a feather in his crown and if Kavinsky accepted, it would come off as gracious to the others. Why shouldn't he want Ronan more? He’d never looked twice at Adam in the past. Adam didn't go out at night looking for trouble. That was Ronan.

Now it was Adam’s presumption that was laughable. But it was the way Kavinsky was looking at him now and the way he had looked at him in the clearing, when he'd had Cabeswater swallowing him with vines, that told Adam he was right about this. Something to do with Ronan’s rejection coupled neatly with the discovery of the mystery that was Adam Parrish had shifted Kavinsky’s obsession. Adam was fairly sure he would not let this opportunity to unravel him go.

“Am I wrong?”

K grimaced shoving his shades back over his eyes. He moved out of Adam’s immediate space, turning to watch for Gansey and Ronan.

When they were within shouting distance Adam dragged the cigarette down to the filter and threw it on the ground, intending to get up and grind it out. But Kavinsky caught his shoulder and hauled him back up the hood.

“Just wait,” K said under his breath.

Gansey and Ronan took in the two of them sitting on K’s car, their eyes searching him for some injury or defect. Adam, for his part, attempted to exude his general disappointment. He wanted the set of his mouth to tell them that he would be doing much better if they had listened to him and just stayed home or gone with Blue, who inexplicably was absent. After the fit she threw earlier that week about being left out, Adam was surprised she hadn’t strong-armed Gansey into tagging along on this pointless mission. 

“Kavinsky,” Gansey greeted, polite to a fault. “Adam.”

“Dick, come for the show?”

“I came to talk with you,” Gansey said easily, all of his attention focused squarely on Kavinsky now. Conveniently, the first of the fireworks went off above them and any of the other partiers who had noticed Gansey’s arrival could not help but stare at Kavinsky’s dream show.

“Hell of a place to do it,” Kavinsky said, uncaring.

“We knew you’d be here and, frankly, it couldn't wait,” Gansey said smoothly ignoring the brilliant explosions overhead. “I have a proposition.”

“Let me stop you right there,” Kavinsky cut in. Something in Gansey’s face ticked. “Whatever you're proposing, I'm not interested.”

“You don't even know what it is yet.”

“Don't I?” Kavinsky asked, letting his eyes linger on Ronan before flicking them to Adam. He turned back to Gansey and raised his eyebrows, soliciting confirmation. 

“Parrish, what the fuck,” Ronan swore, eyes raking Adam. But Gansey didn’t break from his renewed staring match with Kavinsky. 

“May I ask why?” he demanded, jaw tight and words only slightly clipped. Though Gansey was frequently implacable, Adam could see this out-right dismissal was getting under his Richard Campbell Gansey the Third veneer. “You spent months gunning for this moment.”

“No, no,” Kavinsky said sitting forward and speaking with the fast clip of long stewing anger. “I wanted him to come to me of his own volition, _but_ that was before I found out what an ungrateful fuck he is. Not only did I save his life, but then I taught him how to properly dream. And how does this douchebag repay me? He fucking beats it the first chance he gets. Doesn't call. Doesn't fucking write. Where are those flowers you promised?” Kavinsky demanded, acknowledging Ronan for the first time.

“Look, you prick-” Ronan growled, but Kavinsky kept talking over him.

“I’ve discovered I like my men to be a bit more appreciative of what I can do for them,” Kavinsky patted the space just above Adam’s knee, once, twice, and then settled there. 

Adam stared down at Kavinsky's hand gripping his thigh, hot even through the fabric of his pants. The touch was proprietary. Possessive. 

Adam resented it. He resented Kavinsky’s grandstanding. He resented Gansey and Ronan giving him the opportunity to do so. For them coming here, when he told them— _Adam had told them both_ —it wasn't going to work. He resented that Gansey couldn't get his thick head around how morality wasn't something every man had the luxury of catering to and his naïveté about sacrifice. He resented Ronan for coming here wearing his desire for a fight like a second skin, when Adam told him he did this entirely to avoid violence. He resented their inaction that forced his hand, K’s opportunism, and himself for getting in this position all on his own. 

Adam checked himself. He knew what he felt, was intimately familiar with that fierce and black burning within him, but dwelling on it wasn't going to do him any favors. He could feel Gansey’s eyes on him, waiting to see his reaction to Kavinsky. Kavinsky was so predictable; gross and unsurprising in his desire to flout ownership of Adam. But Adam could let Kavinsky have that moment, if only because he was going to take K down a few pegs on that later, because he wasn’t as angry with Kavinsky as he was with Gansey. Adam squared himself, letting the chill of all that anger distill in him. He didn’t jostle his leg, didn’t dislodge K’s hand, and when he looked up locking eyes with Gansey, it was Gansey who flinched. 

“I didn't promise you anything last Sunday and you know it,” Ronan said apparently bored of Kavinsky’s posturing. “Enough of this wailing on like a jilted lover.”

Kavinsky let out a hiss of disgust. 

“So your 'generosity' was misplaced,” Ronan continued. “That's life. You don’t need to fuck around with my friends to get back at me. All you need to do is come down here. And fight me. Get over it and we can all move on with our lives.”

“Gansey,” Adam said, trying to get the other boy’s attention, but he wouldn’t look at Adam. 

“Alright,” Kavinsky said, levering himself off the car.

“K-” Adam scrambled off the mitsu to grab his arm. Kavinsky turned back, his other arm circling around to cup the back of Adam’s neck in an easy motion.

“Relax, Poison Ivy,” Kavinsky said, smirk more conspiratorial than mocking. Adam blinked at the nick name. “I'm fighting for my honor, not yours.”

Kavinsky took off the floral patterned shirt he’d been wearing open over his wife beater and tucked it in Adam’s dumb hands. Then he turned back to Ronan, as he stepped fully into the small patch of grass that had been left in front of the mitsu, and said “I know you want this to be a winner takes all fight, but this is about what happened last Sunday. Nothing more, nothing after. Whoever wins; my 'unrealistic expectations' or your douchebaggery.-”

“Hey, put that in air quotes too!”

“-doesn’t get to lay claim to anything other than their pride.”

“Gansey,” Adam tried again, because if there was anyone who could stop this it was the man holding Ronan’s leash, and even then, it wouldn’t be a sure thing. Ronan was squaring himself, stepping forward.

“See you on the other side,” Kavinsky said, and though Adam couldn’t see his face he would have bet his hard earned money that K was sneering. He put something in his mouth and seconds later he had slumped to the ground. 

“Gansey,” Adam shouted more forceful, wishing he would take Ronan’s arm. 

“Fuck!” Ronan swore, as he dug into his pocket for an identical green pill. Adam watched him swallow it dry and slump to the ground too.

Slipping into their dream worlds could only mean that they were going to pull out dream weapons. Obviously, Adam shouldn't have even bothered striking that deal to begin with.

Utterly at a loss for what to do, he watched their unmoving bodies anxiously. 

Inexplicably, Adam’s vision doubled. One moment he was looking at two sleeping bodies and then there were four. Then two. Four again. Six. Eight. Ten. Distressed, Adam stumbled back blinking to lean on the mitsu. Then, to his horror, his vision shuddered out completely and he was left in black.

_Cabeswater_ , Adam reminded himself desperately. This had to be Cabeswater.

As if on cue, his sight came back in a flashed image of a tree branch. 

Black. 

The moonlight on blades of uncrushed grass. 

Blackness. 

Where ever this was, it was not the drag strip by a long shot. That much was apparent. 

Still, Adam didn't understand what he was seeing. Cabeswater was trying to communicate. Trying to show him something...There was a snatch of an elbow to somebody's back. A black boot connecting with an upturned gut. A palm pressed roughly over a face. The glint of an earring in the nightlight.

Adam’s breath caught. 

Those were Ronan's arms with the leather straps. 

White. 

A shower of stars and leaves rustling over head.

Blackness again.

That was Kavinsky's wife beater stained with dirt and grass. 

What Cabeswater wanted Adam to see was Kavinsky and Ronan's fight. The trees were unused to acting as sustained surveillance eyes, and so the images cut in and out from different angles, missing a majority of the action. Adam didn’t understand how _Cabeswater_ could see this at all.

A cloud of dusty dirt in the air. 

Black.

Then whatever troubleshooting issue Cabeswater had been having was solved, and like back in school when the teacher finally figured out how to connect the tv with the vcr, the picture snapped in right in the middle of the movie.

The image being shown to Adam seemed impossible. 

K, bloody and thrashed as he was, had somehow managed, fighting dirty—Adam guessed from the snatches he’d seen—to climb on Ronan's back. He had him in a headlock and Ronan, who looked no worse for wear, couldn't seem to shake him off. Ronan pawed and shook and tried to pry at Kavinsky’s arm around his neck to no avail.

Finally, he just smashed his back against the nearest tree. K let out a pained ‘ooof’ and Ronan did it again, harder. As he rammed K back again and again, Adam saw the exact moment Kavinsky could have easily been swatted off. The way his face twisted in pain; but from some unknown reservoir of strength, he clung on. It was only sheer dumb luck Ronan was slowing at that point, the lack of oxygen making his movements erratic and murky as if he were underwater. 

Adam in his strange position as seeing/unseeing felt Ronan’s commands, his pleading for Cabeswater to help him. The forest was quick to jump to his aide, sending out vines to try and pry Kavinsky off. 

But when Kavinsky noticed them coming precariously close, he merely closed his eyes and Adam felt the ley line’s pulse slow. He knew what was coming and so did Cabeswater. The vines slithered away, but K’s dream creature had already manifested. K opened his eyes and stared over Ronan's shoulder at the space which had been empty moments before. 

There was a small dragon made entirely of self contained fire. 

Seconds later Ronan’s struggling ceased and he went limp on top of Kavinsky, as they both slid down the tree trunk. 

The trees hissed around him as K watched the small dragon tumble around uselessly on the forest floor.

Kavinsky, still stuck between the tree and Ronan, rolled Lynch off and stood hunched over. He walked haltingly over to the tiny beast and let it crawl into his hand. Cabeswater knew it was small, but seeing it fit in K’s hand was insult to injury. 

Straightening only half way, Kavinsky called to the forest all around him, “I made a promise to your magician that I wouldn't destroy you or use all the energy on the line. You'd do good to remember that I could have made a bigger one of these back in the clearing that day. That I could make a bigger one anytime.”

And just like that he was gone.

Adam shoved at the images of a slumped Ronan alone Cabeswater was still sending him. He wanted to get his own sight back, since he wouldn’t be able to physically check Ronan’s health here in the dream place. Cabeswater.

When Adam finally came back to himself, Kavinsky was standing near where he’d taken the pill, bent over and beat up. His clothes were ripped, shades busted, and in his palm was the tiny dragon, just as he had held in the dream.

Adam stared. 

Kavinsky hobbled back over to the mitsu and gingerly leaned against it. 

“What are you doing with _that_?”

“I didn't go in planning on bringing anything out, okay? But I needed leverage,” Kavinsky heaved out in pained gusts. “Guess it's a good thing it's Sunday. Want it?”

Like the other creatures Kavinsky had created, this one was at once glorious and terrible. A small crippled thing, its wings were not yet fully formed and its breath came out in the tiniest puffs of smoke. It was endearingly playful though, bounding up Kavinsky's arm and back down, looking all around. And while the fire, of which it consisted, swirled and bloomed, the little claws on which it tottered and its overactive tail did not seem to burn when they brushed him. How could K create something so adorable under the guise of something so hideously destructive?

“What would I want it for?” Adam asked, deeply disturbed by the duality. Even if he could keep it somewhere it could live peacefully, Adam couldn’t bare to look at it, tainted as it was with the threat against Cabeswater and himself.

“Fine,” Kavinsky's lips turned down. Without further ceremony he herded the small thing in his palm and neatly snuffed it out. 

Adam stared. By the smoke coming up from his closed fist Adam guessed it must have hurt, but K only flattened his palm against the cool hood of the mitsu. Kavinsky had begun watching Gansey instead, who was hovering over Ronan’s still slumped body checking his vitals, but he turned back to Adam when his stare became disquieting. 

“What?” K demanded. “You wanted me to let it go?” 

No, Adam did not. 

“Ronan? _Ronan?_ ” Gansey said, his panicked voice breaking whatever thought Adam was about to try to articulate, before Gansey shouted at Kavinsky accusing, “What did you do to him?”

“Only what he was asking for. We fought, but do you think that bitch tapped out?” Kavinsky asked, still half bent. K must have meant it as a rhetorical question, as he had deliberately taken the fight to a place miles from here, but Adam _had_ seen it. Gansey would never take K’s word, even if they all knew that Ronan would not have tapped out.

“No, he didn’t,” Adam answered. Gansey, shocked, looked at him for the first time since K had put his hand on Adam’s leg. “Ronan tried to get Cabeswater to help him though.”

Kavinsky, only glanced at him, something unreadable in his expression. His eyes however seemed to say, _Hidden talents._

“Why won't he wake up?

“He'll be fine. Motherfucker cracked a rib,” Kavinsky griped, as he hauled himself further onto the hood of his car. “Parrish, there's a bottle in the glove compartment with a bunch of holes in the top. Labeled ‘Salt.’ Give it to Dick.”

Adam went around to the passenger side of the car and opened the glove compartment. He stared down at the veritable pharmacopeia. It was jammed pack with at least twenty pill bottles of assorted neon colored caps. Adam pulled out the only one that looked like a spice container. The holes were closed but all he had to do was give the cap a twist and they slid open, giving off a reeking ammonia-like stench. _Smelling salts_. Adam snapped it closed and made his way towards Gansey, who was still hovering uselessly over Ronan’s prone form.

Adam had intended to hand the bottle to Gansey and help him with Ronan, but seeing Gansey and the unconscious Ronan, the direct result of what Gansey’s inaction had wrought, Adam suddenly found himself overcome as a coarse black wave of anger enveloped him again. 

It wasn’t right to be this angry. 

“Adam,” Kavinsky said from somewhere behind him, but it didn’t sound like his name. It sounded like _not now_. Adam wondered how K knew. How he could read it on him, when Adam himself was only just getting a grasp on it and he’d been living with it for seventeen years.

“Gansey,” Adam called from the five yards he still could not cross. Gansey looked up at him distracted. “Smelling salt,” Adam explained and tossed the putrid container at him and retreated a safer distance. He watched as Gansey passed the salt under Ronan’s nose a couple of times before he began to rouse.

“What-?” Ronan mumbled, clearly still out of it. “Gans?”

“I’m here,” Gansey said with a watery reassuring smile, gripping him closer.

“Now fucking leave,” Kavinsky ordered. 

“I can’t carry him back to the car like this all on my own,” Gansey stated. 

“Then enlist one of you’re compatriots,” Kavinsky suggested dismissively. “That guy looks helpful.” Kavinsky was pointing to Gino Carision, who happened to have been on the Aglionby crew team with Gansey the year before and was currently engrossed in the fireworks still going off above them. But Gansey hadn’t looked to where Kavinsky pointed. 

“Adam?” Gansey asked, his gaze imploring. He had asked, but Adam still felt the command in it. The urge to follow. The call to arms. 

Perhaps if Gansey had told Ronan ‘no,’ maybe Adam would have gone and helped. Possibly if Gansey had interfered in the fight in any way, Adam wouldn’t still have this paralyzing anger coursing through him. 

_It wasn’t right to feel this angry._

Maybe, if Kavinsky had said anything, if he had put a hand on him again, or had done anything other than look on with amused interest, Adam would have heeded Gansey’s command and fallen in step like he always did. 

“What?” Adam asked, “You want my help now?”

Gansey looked actually pained. 

Next to him, Kavinsky let out a wheezing sound that likely started as a laugh. 

“I asked you to put a stop to that,” Adam told Gansey, almost defensively, nodding at Ronan. “I told you not to come here.”

“We were just trying to make this better,” Gansey said.

His words sliced Adam down to the core. He felt wretched; betrayed and gratified and horrible all at once. Adam wondered if Gansey could see it. He wondered if Gansey could see his own expression of miserable betrayal reflected back at him. Whatever Gansey was seeing in Adam, held his attention until a hand came up bumping along Gansey’s lower face. Ronan was saying something that Adam couldn’t hear and Gansey’s attention fell back to Ronan.

“Skov?” Kavinsky called over to the make-shift DJ booth. Skov, who had these chunky earphones half on, pulled them all the way off to hear what K wanted. Adam couldn’t look away from Gansey. “Babe, would you kindly ensure that these guests make their way back to their vehicle without further distraction?”

“Sure thing,” he flipped a few switches and threw off his headphones, before slouching over to where Gansey was helping Ronan to his feet.

Adam watched as the two settled Ronan’s arms around their shoulders. Skov was considerably shorter then both Ronan and Gansey, but they needed a third person to help.

It was Ronan who turned his head back slightly to try and see Adam again. Even as they hobbled away Adam could see something not right in the set of Ronan’s mouth, though his eyes were clear. There wasn’t anything Adam could do about it now.

“You want to drive me home?” Kavinsky asked finally, in between bombs of the fireworks that were still going off.

“And leave my car here?”

“Worried it will get vandalized?

Adam had not been, but now he was.

“I don’t think I could walk to find your’s,” Kavinsky pointed out. “Hey, man, look you don’t have to...” 

“It’s just I have work in the morning.”

“So take the mitsu,” Kavinsky humphed, unconcerned. “Or get one of the others to drive your...whatever that thing is back to mine. Look, if I get somewhere quiet, I'll be able to dream the fracture away....”  


“How do you know he didn't break it?” Adam asked, for the first time actually engaged in the conversation since Gansey and Ronan left. While the idea of a dreamer being able to heal themselves was fascinating, it would be foolish to take such a risk unless K was absolutely certain that it wasn’t a break. Even Adam knew that a dreamer had to know what to dream in order to dream it. 

“Oh my god, Parrish! This hurts like a bitch and I can’t take something that will numb the pain, if I want to fix it right, and _that’s_ what you’re focusing on... ” K said exasperated. Then he turned to shout over the mob, “Proko!”

“They feel different. We should go to the hospital. To be sure.”

“Why? So they can tell me what I already know and then wrap some weak-ass gauze around me that’s gonna do fuck all? No.”

“You could really screw something up if you’re wrong. How do you know it’s a fracture?” Adam repeated, because honestly.

“Shit, Parrish, probably the same way _you_ fucking know there _is_ a difference,” Kavinsky snapped and then shouted for Prokopenko again with no success. “Fuck him,” he said turning back to Adam, “The fuck's with all the questions anyway?”

“Just can’t believe you’d leave your own party,” Adam shrugged, glossing over his discomfort at Kavinsky’s last comment. K was right. This wasn’t really the place to get into that. “Why do you need to go someplace quiet anyway?”

“Strictly speaking, I don’t,” K admitted. “But if I don’t focus on it, like a hundred percent, like you said, I could really fuck something up.”

“Just us then?” 

Kavinsky waved a dismissive hand and rolled off the top of the car in an inelegant, abortive, clearly painful maneuver. He cough-choked and horsely said, “Let’s just go.”

That however proved to be easier said than done. K had not parked in the direct center of the commandeered drag strip, but he may as well have with the amount of people milling around in what were supposed to be a dance area. Adam had flashed the mitsu’s lights, which got some of the people to move, but the rest were pretty determined to watch the lights going off in the sky. 

“We might not be able to get out,” Adam observed.

“The horn’s right there, Parrish.”

Adam looked down at the center of the steering wheel. 

He allowed himself a harsh slam of the heel of his hand on the Mitsubishi emblem. The screech of the horn resulted a satisfying scattering of the partiers in front of them. It seemed like he had to slam the horn every ten yards and too soon all the satisfaction he got from it had dissipated. It was a trial of patience as they inched along. Adam took to tapping his fingers on the wheel. While K, not moaning, was too tense not to be in a great deal of pain. 

When they finally made it to the highway, Adam was still drumming his fingers on the wheel in a nervous arrhythmic rata-tat-tat-tat that just didn’t stop.

“Are you going to be able to sleep?” Kavinsky asked, after watching him do this for three miles.

“No,” Adam said simply. He would spend the rest of the night turning the events of the day over and over, angry and nearly regretful, till it was time for him to go to work the next morning. 

K reached forward with a hiss, popping the glove compartment revealing the dreamt up pharmacy. He pulled out the only bottle that had a boring blue lid and a recognizable brand name and tossed it into Adam’s lap.

“What's this?”

“Melatonin.”

“Oh,” Adam said. He could understand why K would have a mild sleep aide, but was baffled by the store label. “These aren't dreamt up,” he stated, just to make sure Kavinsky hadn't been having a laugh when he pulled them out.

“No, Skov bought those a while ago,” K said somnolently, reclining his seat back all the way.

“May I ask why?”

“Oh,” K sighed, mouth twisting in a ambivalent frown. “I let Skov try a batch of uppers I dreamed. The batch was bad. I had a feeling but... but I didn't know they would make him _that_ up. Three days later still amped as fuck and not having slept at all, I offered to dream him a sleeping pill to end all sleeping pills, but he told me to ‘fuck off’ and took half of that bottle.”

“Why do you have them?”

“Skov put it in there as some kind of,” K gestured flippantly, searching for the right word. “Passive aggressive reminder to better vet my product before giving it to my people.”

“And you just leave it in there.”

“Waste not, want not, Parrish,” K said, letting his eyes slide shut. But Kavinsky had made a habit of waste and wanted for nothing. Adam wondered if Kavinsky liked the reminder after all.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it! Please let me know what you think as there are six more parts on their way!


	2. part ii: within a rise there lies a scission

 

 

 

 

 

act i: there i find you marked in constellation 

 

 

 

 

 

Adam moved through Monday and Tuesday of the next week in a haze of preoccupation. 

To say that his work was rote operation would be largely inaccurate. The mechanical troubleshooting at Boyd’s relied on years of auto-body experience, stacking pallets at the warehouse was a perpetual three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle, and if he wasn’t paying attention at the trailer factory, he could loose a limb. Of course, there was a sort of rhythm he could get in to while working, but actual daydreaming was not an option after he clocked on. 

The shush-shushing of trees in the wind could be quite soothing when he had his eyes closed, trying to fall asleep in his room, but catching himself drifting to them at work was decidedly less so. Monday morning, he thought the hard time he was having focusing was merely the result of how little sleep he had the night before. 

When he and Kavinsky had pulled into the drive of the McMansion, before Adam had even killed the engine, K had pulled out one of his green pills. Adam had a brief war with himself. He desperately wanted to see K dream something, even if there wouldn’t really be anything _to_ see. But there was something private about it. Something indecent about watching. 

“Jesus,” Kavinsky exhaled in exacerbated amusement. “Stop freaking out. You can watch.” The lewdness with which K had made the statement had been drastically deteriorated by his labored breath and sweat gathering at his temples. 

Adam tried not to roll his eyes.

“You going to swallow that dry or do you have water in the back?” Adam asked, turning to peer behind them. 

“On my side, in the cooler,” K said. Adam handed him a water bottle and without further preamble, K downed the pill.

Just like earlier K collapsed in immediate slumber. Adam watched. It was only a few minutes really and on the surface, nothing happened. The only apparent change was K’s breathing, which had evened out by the time he opened his eyes again. 

“I’m hungry,” K said, perky and _healed_. He was no longer wincing with every move that much was obvious, but Adam still couldn’t believe it.

“Can I?” Adam asked hand half extended. Kavinsky nodded, scooting slightly so Adam wouldn’t have to reach as far. 

Adam pressed lightly along K’s side finding his ribs through the ridged white cotton of the tank top. K caught his fingers and pressed them to one rib in particular. K’s breathing remained normal and K pushed Adam’s fingers harder into his skin. There was not even a hitch of pain. 

Kavinsky had _dreamed_ away the fracture. Adam could hardly believe it and yet he was _touching—_

“Not the most exciting forgery,” K said in a tone of voice that was nearly deprecating. 

“Amazing,” Adam said, drawing his hand back.

Kavinsky shrugged, but he was grinning once they were out of the car and walking up to the front door. Adam followed still rather stunned. 

“Do you want some crackers?” K asked undoing the lock.

“Sure,” Adam said as K took him, not into the kitchen, but down to the basement. They collapsed in the theater seats, each with a sleeve of Ritz, as some Bulgarian tv show played on the projector. From what Adam gathered it was about a group of teens in a band, but it had been slow going at the beginning. Kavinsky, having gotten his second wind, refused to turn on the subtitles and insisted on narrating the entire show; comically abridging the dialogue and adding his own commentary till Adam was so confused, he threatened to just leave and try to sleep in one of K’s guest rooms. K had snagged Adam’s arm, told him to hold his kitty horses, and, with the greatest reluctance, turned on the english captions. Adam was then hit square in the chest with a half-full party-sized bag of 100 Grand bars. 

It was all a rather surreal diversion from his circular thoughts. 

He didn’t want to think of the uneven set of Ronan’s mouth, the betrayal in Gansey’s eyes, or what Blue would say when he saw her again, and if he knew Blue at all, it would be sooner rather than later. So Adam let himself be pulled into the drama of the tv show until he finally nodded off sometime after the seventh episode, Kavinsky still chewing on a twizzler next to him. 

Adam woke up alone on the couch and with a text saying that his car was out front and keys were on the island counter. Indeed his keys were on the island, along with a banana and bottle of gatoraide. But it was only once he walked out to the curb and climbed into his car, that Adam noticed a new key on his ring. It was just dangling in between the ones he had for St. Agnes, his old bike lock, and the shitbox’s in the ignition. 

He ran a finger along the teeth. They were sharp and freshly cut.

Adam turned to look back at K’s front door, stunned; the whole house silhouetted in the crisp morning sun. Kavinsky was either extremely trusting or he had made a quick study of Adam. The whole night had been close and personal all the way through. Easy, like he had always run with Kavinsky. Which was peculiar, because he hadn’t and him and K they weren’t—the whole night just didn’t make sense. Like he had fallen through a puddle into a strange mirror world of his own. 

Adam wondered if it had something to do with the dream cigarettes. On his first break, Adam stepped out for a smoke to test the theory. The cigarette was just as amazing as the night before, but when he clocked back on Adam felt no real kinship with his work at the trailer factory—nothing beyond the fact that of his three jobs, it paid the best. And the pure bliss that rolled over Adam as he had smoked did not follow him on to the factory floor. Whatever mood that had come over him last night had stayed in K’s basement. 

It wasn’t until after lunch that Adam was struck with how different this was from his usual exhaustion. He was always tired but there were some days when Adam didn’t think that he could get any more tired, only to be proven wrong the next day and then the day after. Adam had an idea of what _this_ exhaustion was, but he couldn’t be sure.

Tuesday was much the same though. Abstractly, Adam knew he’d been coasting. He repeatedly scattered the order of tasks that he generally followed a specific process for. The tasks got done and right, but he was taking longer. Adam was industrious and self motivated, more so than several of his coworkers and because of that Adam’s supervisor hadn't said anything but Adam knew he _would_ if this continued.

His mind would wonder to the forest before he even realized, unless he was really concentrating. Idly, Adam wondered if this was Cabeswater trying to be subtle? But it wasn’t until Wednesday morning that the fog cleared enough for him to realize that if Cabeswater had something it wanted him to do, Adam would have to be the one to reach out to find out what it was.

Adam took an early lunch and out at his car, he drew cards, letting Cabeswater tell him what it needed. Apparently, there was a pretty large rift about twenty minutes drive from Henrietta that was leaking significant energy.

Adam was slightly grateful that the spot where the line needed to be fixed was not actually _in_ Cabeswater this time. He still didn’t have a real understanding of how exactly it could be the dream place, but more pertinent to Adam’s current concerns, at least, he wouldn’t have to take Kavinsky there. Cabeswater was still on edge from being threatened twice in less than a week by the same person, and both times as a direct reaction to the choices of its humans. Adam got the impression that was part of the reason it was so adamant for Adam to fix this section as soon as possible.

But that was assuming Kavinsky was still interested in helping him fix the ley line. 

In Adam’s experience, people were more than willing to help for a one off, occasionally twice, but not more. This was a continual obligation. Adam wouldn’t be surprised if K silently rescinded his offer of help once the novelty wore off; the others shirking sooner, having nothing but curiosity to draw them in. Still, Adam wanted somebody to go with him at least until he had consulted with Persephone and he knew of a better way to maintain the link with his body. Reclining his seat back, Adam texted K.

_you good for that rock moving still?_

_you know it babe_

Adam stared at Kavinsky’s liquid quick reply. It wasn’t that Adam had never heard him use the endearment. K indiscriminately called every single one of his pack ‘babe’ as if they were in some weird pentagon shaped relationship. It seemed like a badge of belonging; to K or with him, Adam had yet to decipher. Adam wasn’t sure what to make of Kavinsky calling him that or the tightening of his gut in response. He was saved from having to analyze either too closely when Kavinsky texted him again twice.

_today?_  
_don’t you have back to back shifts?_

_i have a few hours between_

_is that gonna be enough time?_

_it will_

It would have to be. Adam needed to do this as soon as possible, because what Adam wasn’t telling Kavinsky was that not fixing Cabeswater’s latest problem was making him antsy. His inability to focus was going to get him written up. His foreman routinely sent men home who were zoning out instead of handling the heavy machinery with the proper attention at the factory. Adam wasn’t willing to risk an accident, but he couldn’t afford to loose the pay if he was sent home for somnolence—and that would be what it would look like to his supervisor if he started drifting off to Cabeswater in the middle of his shift. 

Kavinsky rounded off their texting by saying he would see about the others and they’d meet Adam in the parking lot of his second job. When Adam pulled up in front of Boyd’s, K, Proko, and Skov climbed into the shit box.

 

 

 

 

 

“Here give 'em this,” Kavinsky said, pulling a thin plastic card from his back pocket.

“What is it?” Adam asked, hesitantly taking the green and white five by eight card. It was cut with a hook at the top, probably for hanging on your rearview mirror. Though why someone would leave the thing hanging there, Adam didn’t know. It seemed like a good way to get his car broken into.

“A park pass.”

“I can see that,” Adam said, slow and still staring at the plastic card. “Why do you have one?”

“I must have wanted to experience the natural ...splendor or some shit,” K shrugged. 

Adam flipped the card around, examining the back. Then flipped it to the front again. The pads of his fingers telling him there was nothing peculiar about what he was holding. 

“Did you dream this?” Adam asked, because he honestly couldn't tell. Regardless of how real Ronan's dream things were, there always seemed to be _something_ that marked them as imagined. The missing battery in the remote control plane or Chainsaw’s unerring loyalty. There was nothing that discerned the pass as a dream thing. It looked like the others advertised in the first window of the park attendant hut they were inching by. Adam had little doubt it felt like them as well. 

“Maybe,” Kavinsky said in a teasing tone. “Maybe not.”

“You actually expect me to believe you _bought_ a National Parks Pass?”

“What if I wanted to go commune with the trees?”

“I thought you might have wanted to see some ivy,” Adam suggested cryptically. He wasn't sure how to threaten Kavinsky while the others were in the car with them if he didn't want to show either of their hands. 

K, glanced at him out of the corner of his eyes, and said, “Only yours, Parrish. Only yours.”

Adam was not comfortable with accepting the pass. As it was, though, he had little ground to stand on. Adam had told the others that K was going to help him with fixing the line via dream objects. It would be ridiculous for Adam to beleaguer the point with an already valid entry paid for in his hands. 

And this was a yearly pass. 

When he’d actually begun repairing the ley line, Cabeswater had sent him up old logging and fire roads. Adam had marked his progress on one of Gansey’s ley line maps. When he was done last week the red x’s looked like plot points on a graph. A cluster of points that you could draw a line along and it headed straight into the national park. 

The park was huge and followed the ley line with an eerie precision. He would have to keep entering it to fix the line. Costing him the fifteen dollars he could barely scrap together once let alone hundreds of times. The pass into the park Kavinsky had handed him seemed to guarantee Adam bringing K along on his ley line repairs if only to get him _to_ the line.

Honestly, it would end up saving him money to have purchased one himself. But the lump sum of $80 wasn't something Adam could scrap together all at once, not if he wanted to eat and have money for gas.

Reluctantly, Adam tried to hand the pass over to the attendant when it was their turn to pull to the window. The ranger merely leaned out of his hut far enough to examine the validity of the reflective hologram before waving the shitbox through. 

Adam gave the pass back and watched K as he tucked it into Adam's glove compartment.

 

 

 

 

 

“So how will we know if you’ve lost your way back?” Proko asked, when they were at the place. Once they had made it through the toll booth and parked, Adam had drawn cards in the parking lot. He led the group away from the well worn tourist path and down a narrow trail more for animals than humans, till they were here. It could hardly even be called a clearing, but Adam didn’t think he was imagining a shift in the atmosphere. How _something_ was ....off.

“If something seems wrong,” Adam shrugged, turning to the others. He didn’t know what loosing his body had looked like. Hell, he didn’t even know what he looked like when was scrying normally. Adam didn’t even know if having someone else here could help. What if on the outside loosing his body didn’t look any different from regular scrying? “Arhythmic breathing, or I start doing weird shit?”

“Weird shit?” Skov echoed. “Not to, like, burst your bubble here or anything, but this is already weird shit.”

“I meant like stop breathing or if I started seizing...”

“Oh, you mean a medical emergency,” K said with evident humor. “And how do you want us to get you back?”

“Hit you?” Skov asked. His grin was unsettling.

Kavinsky raised a disdainful eyebrow.

“I would prefer a different method,” Adam said.

“I’m sure we’ll think of something,” Proko promised, throwing an arm around Skov’s shoulders.

Adam gave him a snide grimace and poured the contents of a water bottle into the bowl he’d carried with him. He’d picked it up at the second hand store. The bowl had struck him as magician-y; as it was nearly as big as his head and made out of some fake gold metal that gleamed in the sun. Adam had this idea it was originally intended to be a decoration for a coffee table or something equally useless, because there was a sticker on the bottom that warned ‘NOT SAFE FOR FOOD USE.’ But mostly he bought it because the price was right.

“You probably won’t even realize I’m gone.”

Adam settled down, clearing his mind, tuning out his surroundings, and staring into the water. He didn’t let himself go in too far. Instead, Adam coaxed Cabeswater to come to him, urging it to stretch _itself_ out this time. The forest was a big thing and it was slow to come to him. He _really_ had to talk to Persephone about that during the next session they had.

Cabeswater told him, in its unique way, exactly what he needed to do and Adam was coming back to his body in record time. There were definite benefits of not going in too deep. As Adam began to process reality again, he was first aware of the noises of a struggle nearby. Then of the raised hairs on the back of his neck, that told him someone had been watching him for a while. 

Adam looked up to find that Skov and Proko were indeed roughhousing about fifteen feet away, but Kavinsky was sitting closer, smoking something that reeked of root-beer and anise. He was not even pretending he hadn’t been staring at Adam. 

“Enjoy the show?” Adam asked, in an attempt to try and brazen out the awkwardness. Had Kavinsky been watching him like that the whole time?

K smirked, “You’re a freaky bitch, Parrish.”

Adam raised an eyebrow. He was curious what K could have seen that would merit _that_ assessment. “Thanks?”

“You’re very welcome,” Kavinsky said. “Find what you needed to know?”

Adam nodded, standing up. He pointed to three decent sized oblong rocks near the base of a short outcropping. “Those need to be up there. But I don’t know how Cabeswater expects me to do it. I should have borrowed a push cart...” _Maybe_ , Adam thought, _he could fashion a pulley_. But, since he didn’t have time to get back into town _and_ come back to move the rocks, they would have to come back another day. Adam sighed.

“Yeah, or it’s called team-lifting,” Kavinsky said, throwing the butt of his cigarette in the dirt and grinding it out. “Skov! Get your ass over here! We’re here to help Poison Ivy, not fuck around!”

 

 

 

 

 

Adam wasn’t used to spending _this_ much time with people. The fact that he genuinely liked K’s crew helped, but he could still be overwhelmed at times. Late Friday night found him and them all in the basement in the midst of a James Bond marathon. By the time Adam had got off work they had already made it through _Dr. No, From Russia with Love_ , and were working on half a dozen pizzas from the Pizza Palace.

They were almost done with _Thunderball_ now, apparently, though he didn’t remember any of it. It would seem Adam had dozed off in the middle of _Goldfinger_. When he’d been woken by a particularly loud explosion, he’d just assumed what was happening on the screen was the same movie. But after a motorcycle chase, a sexy beach scene, and a tense game of cards, Adam was finally confused enough to ask what happened to Pussy Galore? 

This was met with a chorus of boo’s and direct hits by handfuls of popcorn. Their ribbing of him was all good natured; un-accusatory and accepting, when he had expected them to give him shit about not being able to even sit through one movie. They _did_ , but when Proko had called him a grandpa, it was with such an irreproachable fondness Adam couldn’t find it in himself to be offended. 

Swan explained what Adam had missed, while K rewound through the last five minutes which no one had been properly watching. Today marked a week of this thing with K, but it felt like much longer. And the proof that it was affecting Adam was right there. He had been comfortable—and exhausted—enough to fall asleep with all of them _right there_. That realization was a lot.

So Adam had gone out in the hallway for a couple deep breaths. It wasn’t even like he could blame it on the heat. Though it was the dead of summer, K’s basement was more of an icebox than anything else. 

It was never this cool at St. Agnes. Hell, with the exception of the grocery store, there wasn't anywhere in Henrietta that Adam spent time in that was this cool in the height of summer. He stared up at the air vent in the hall ceiling. It was blowing a steady stream of frosty air. This was definitely an unexpected benefit of running with K.

“Bond too boring, Parish?” Kavinsky asked, startling him from the now open doorway. “Prefer to watch the ceiling? Or is this all too much for you?”

“Just needed a moment,” Adam said, returning K’s gaze with a critical eye. 

K raised his eyebrows and eased the basement door shut behind him. 

“You’ve been more than a moment,” K pointed out, pacing down the hallway. “Skov wanted to see if you fell in.”

Adam scoffed. He looked at K leaning on the wall across from him, arms folded over his chest. This seem like the best time to bring it up; K and him alone. It hadn’t just been them since last Sunday night. Or morning depending on how you looked at it. They were always surrounded by the others, which was fine, but made it extremely difficult to have a conversation about Cabeswater without giving away all the secrets the two of them were keeping.

“So Cabeswater’s the dream place,” he stated, unwilling to leave room for K to whittle his way out of talking about this. 

“It would seem so,” K said neutrally.

“Did you figure it out that day in the clearing?”

“I’m not an expert on distinguishing magical forests,” Kavinsky began. “I thought I might have dreamt of being there before, but I wasn’t sure.”

K pulled out a pack of dream cigarettes. This one was yellow with the image of a penguin wearing a flowing white dress and holding a glowing white sphere. It had a white disc behind its head, like a Byzantine saint; a comparison completely ruined by the fact that the penguin was also sticking out its tongue and winking.

“To be honest, I don’t really spend much time there,” K said, taking out a black cigarette and lighting up.

“What do you mean?” Adam asked. He didn’t follow. How could Kavinsky have perfected his dreaming if he barely spent any time in Cabeswater?

“I get in and I get out. It’s a pretty simple process,” K said. “Doesn’t really leave me time to linger over the ... _fucking_ foliage or mark out my favorite tree.”

“But that’s only when you want to pull something out, right?” Adam asked, watching K’s cheeks hallow as he took another drag. After a slight deliberation, Adam took out his own pack of pink smokes.

“Nightmares tend to come regardless of my intentions.”

“But-” Adam cut himself off. He frowned, lit his cigarette, and kept frowning at Kavinsky.

“I don’t let myself dream, Poison Ivy,” K laughed in an attempt to alleviate Adam’s confusion. His tone was simultaneously one that invited Adam to ask more questions, but also made it clear he would prefer to not be talking about this.

“Dreaming isn’t really a choice,” Adam said cautiously.

“You know how in _Harry Potter_ they take the Draught of Dreamless Sleep Potion?”

“No,” Adam hadn’t seen or read _Harry Potter._

K looked at him for several seconds gauging the veracity of this denial. “Alright, we’ll address that some other time, but name’s pretty self-explanatory, right? I dreamt some pills that do that for me.”

“You really don’t dream?” Adam asked. “Like normal dreams?”

“What are ‘normal dreams?’” K asked brows raised, eyes dancing with mischief. 

“Oh, fuck off,” Adam muttered. “You know what I mean.”

“Not with any consistency and with the kind of nightmares I have, I doubt you’d want to chance it either.”

If K’s night horrors were anything like Ronan’s monsters, Adam could understand the apprehension. “You said you don’t accidentally pull things out.”

“I don’t. But, if I die in the dream, I die in real life,” Kavinsky said so matter of factly that Adam had accepted the words before he even parsed how absurd they were. There was no way he could _know_ that for sure. Here Adam was talking with Kavinsky in his basement, very alive, and K had told him point blank that Ronan was the only other dreamer he had met. And Adam doubted K’s nightmares had only started being a problem after K had found Ronan on Ag’s front lawn.

“How do you know that?”

“How do you know it’s gonna rain?” K shrugged. “There’s that pressure in the air. You can feel it. You just know, man.”

Adam took a deep pull, ticking this over. 

“Though I will say,” K continued. “I’ve just grown to expect it here.”

“Why?”

“Your forest is like a magnet to dreamers in the area. I’ve tried to get myself to the dream place I used to go to in Jersey, but it was too far or your forest’s pull was too strong,” K said, resignedly annoyed. “Which is crap for me.”

Adam raised his eyebrows. That seemed like an understatement.

“Look, no offense,” K said holding up his hands. “But I can’t say I’m too _keen_ on your forest.” 

Apparently Adam’s expression alone conveyed enough of his thoughts that K continued unprompted. 

“And before you start,” K said with an air of not undo indignation. “I didn’t always just fucking steal things.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the dream place I learned on back up in Jersey was really easy with me. Hell, it even helped me. Like I get that I offended your forest by taking all this stuff without consideration to it, but really, man, it started it,” K said vehemently. 

Adam let out a surprised scoff. “Seems a bit petty. That was three years ago.”

“I never claimed to be otherwise,” he said, grin all teeth. 

It struck Adam as bitter somehow.

“Your forest seems to call the nightmares to me faster...” K said. he shrugged. “I mean I’ve dealt with aggressive nightmares before—that part wasn’t new—but I used to have more time...”

“What do you mean aggressive?” Adam asked. “Like Ronan’s night horrors aggressive?”

“Sometimes, yeah,” K agreed, lighting up a second cigarette. “Part of the trick to avoiding nightmares is your mindset _before_ going into the dream. If a dreamer is consciously upset, they better be in and out or otherwise that shit is coming for them like,” K snapped his fingers. “But you know how they say dreams are manifestations of our subconscious? Well, if I’m bothered about something and it’s been irking me in the back of my mind, those nightmares are still gonna come for me really easy.

“So if I have shit going on, it’s just easier to avoid the possibility entirely and take those pills,” K said. “That wouldn’t be all the time but, the first time I dreamed here after we moved, I barely had time to realize I was in a forest let alone explore, before _they_ were on me,” K said. “And that had nothing to do with my mindset.”

“Not even subconsciously?”

“No, because when I got to Henrietta I was the chillest. Not a care in the world. Getting out of Jersey right then was the best thing I could think of, but still the nightmares came for me too fast. It’s the place. That forest,” K said, shaking his head. “Has it in for dreamers.”

While on one hand, K made a compelling argument with the nightmares, Adam still couldn’t shake the way Cabeswater was so welcoming to Ronan. He didn’t want to tell Kavinsky this outright for obvious reasons, but it seemed prudent for him to reconsider.

“Or maybe just you.”

K shrugged, as if Adam’s opinion on the issue didn’t make a lick of difference, since he had to deal with Cabeswater’s shitty attitude either way.

It begged the question of how Niall Lynch interacted with Cabeswater or how often he had nightmares. It made Adam want to ask Ronan what he knew. He would ask too, but there was so much about Ronan’s relationships that was unsaid. Something told Adam Ronan wouldn’t actually know anyway.

“While we’re on the subject,” Adam segued. “Are you experiencing withdrawals yet?” 

He was honestly curious. Adam couldn’t even begin to comprehend what it would be like to have such a power—it was pointless for him to waste time thinking about it— all he knew was that he wouldn’t have given it up for the world. With power like that at his fingertips, Adam didn’t understand how Kavinsky could have not violated their deal yet. 

“You know,” K scoffed. “I can admit I was tempted. I wanted to keep pushing. Pulling things out. To see when you’d notice,” Kavinsky admitted. “But then I realized that would be more fun if you were in on it.”

Adam had wondered himself. He was a quick learner, but that made exactly how short a time he had been working with Cabeswater seemed deceptively longer. The line had been too weak after Ronan and K’s dream extravaganza the weekend before the Fourth for either of them to have pulled out anything big the following week. Adam hadn’t noticed any of the things K pulled out on the Fourth—he had also been quite preoccupied. Though he would have bet his sense of smell that Cabeswater would tell him in some peculiar invasion if Kavinsky broke their deal. But now that it was on the table, they could revisit those tests some other time. 

“I guess the real question is are _you_ regretting this yet?”

“Am I?” Adam repeated, buying himself time to figure out exactly how he wanted to describe the way he saw things.

For all this deal seemed to be about Glendower, it was more about self-preservation. Adam was fairly certain what happened to him the night of the Gansey party was the result of his ignoring Cabeswater for so long coming to a head with how much the dreamer’s had taken. If that lack of cognizance—lack of control—stemmed in any way from his negligence than Adam was going to do what he had to make sure it didn’t happen again. This was the deal he made. Even if he had woken the ley line to find Glendower, Cabeswater would come first now. 

“Do you know what happened to me the day you and Ronan drained the line?”

Kavinsky waited, brows knit. The question was clearly rhetorical; of course he didn’t.

“Well, I don’t know either,” Adam admitted. “I lost the whole day. Came to wandering along the interstate leading back towards Henrietta. No recollection of any of it. No idea how I’d got there. I was dozens of miles from Gansey’s parent’s place. Tired as fuck. And no idea where I was or why.”

“You’re _that_ tied to it?” Kavinsky asked, eyes narrowed and leaning half way across the hall. 

Adam shrugged. _Evidently._

“Really?” K pressed, eyebrows raised. “No wonder you came after me.”

“Fugue state they call it.”

“Yeah,” K exhaled. His gaze was intense; head cocked to the side in something that could have been puzzlement, wonder, or calculation. “What was it for? The forest wanted you to come back here and fix the line? Or stop us?”

“It was to fix the line.”

K took a drag. 

 

 

 

 

 

Adam navigated the church, debating whether he wanted to make tomorrow’s lunch before he went to sleep or leave if for the morning, tired as he was. When he came to the back stairs, he looked up to find Blue sitting on the top steps. For the half second she didn’t notice him, Adam wondered if he turned around and left, how long she would wait there for him. If this was even the first night she had come to find him...Then Blue looked up and gave him a sheepish smile and his gut twisted guiltily at the thought of making her waste her time like that for nothing.

“Hey,” she greeted, getting to her feet. 

“Hello,” Adam replied, starting on the stairs, courteous though he wasn’t in the mood to speak with her. He had been expecting Blue sooner, honestly. But he had been grateful that their work schedules conflicted and whatever awkwardness they had left on had made her hesitant in confronting him about all this. He was sure she had some opinions about it, except somehow they had not seen each other since that afternoon when they’d broken up. But apparently they had never been together. Adam was still hazy about the particulars. 

It had been over a week and seeing her now brought out a hurt he had been too busy to remember. Adam couldn’t help but take her in; her silky hair pulled back with bright little clips, the small mole she had off to the right of her left eye, the crafty ingenuity of her hodge-podge outfit of overalls rolled up to her knees, over a gauzy threadbare blouse and a huge metal butterfly fashioned out of cut-up soda cans clipped above her breast pocket. It all exposed too many fresh wounds. 

_She didn’t want him. It wouldn’t be him. But it would be someone._

Adam busied himself with unlocking the door. He left it open for her to follow and went into the stifling hot space. His room got the afternoon sun and when he was at work —or with Kavinsky’s pack— the whole place became mercilessly hot all shut up. He crossed the room and opened the window. If he left the hall door open too, they might get some kind of cross draft. It rarely did any good though, aside from letting the bugs know where they should hang out if he left the lights on, like they were now. When he turned back, Blue was hovering just inside the door. 

“I was surprised you didn’t come to the Fourth,” Adam said, biting the bullet. 

“I should have been there, but he didn’t even tell me about it till the day after,” Blue said, irate at the indignation of being left out. Again. “I kicked his ass.” 

Adam had no doubt. He was surprised Gansey had the gall to leave Blue behind in the first place. 

“It would've gone better if I had been there,” she continued. 

Adam shrugged. It wouldn’t have been hard for it to have gone better. For several seconds the only sound was that of the crickets outside. 

“What are you doing, Adam?” Blue asked. 

Adam didn't say anything. There were only so many ways he could say that he had been trying to save Cabeswater and he was too exhausted to say it all again for the third time. He just shrugged. It wasn’t fair to Blue, but he couldn’t bring himself to repeat the now tired defenses he had for his actions.

Blue pursed her lips and turned to look around the room; at the hastily made bed, the rumpled pillow, the empty dresser top, the neat stack of old school notes, next to an even neater stack of summer reading on his desk.

“Ronan’s fine by the way,” she said turning back to Adam. “Not that you asked.”

“Well I'd hope so,” he said. There hadn’t been any question in Adam’s mind that Ronan was fine. At least, physically. But the news was a relief regardless. “It would have been a shame for there to be any permanent damage from something so stupid.”

“Seriously, Adam, do you not care at all?”

“Ronan trying to settle scores with his fists isn’t anything new,” Adam pointed out tiredly.

“I’d say getting into a dream fight with Kavinsky is.”

“Oh sure. Yeah, they went to the dream place, but just punched and kicked at each other.”

“Damage was done.”

“You’re right,” Adam said, tone a mockery of consideration. It was obvious from the way she was looking at him that she was thinking of Ronan’s several minutes of lost consciousness and the hit he took to his pride, not Kavinsky who had come out of the dream beaten, torn, and wheezing. Part of that was Gansey not relaying the events properly and part of that was bias. Pure and simple. Seeing that kind of blatant hypocrisy was making Adam ungenerous. This entire conversation was making him spiteful. “Ronan fractured one of Kavinsky’s ribs. But I’m sure he’ll be touched that you care.”

“As if,” Blue said lip curled in disgust. “Are you really laying all the blame at Ronan’s feet?” 

“Did Gansey even tell you why there was a fight at all? Do you even know what they were fighting about?”

Blue stared at him hard. 

“Not for me,” Adam said, throwing up his arms. “Not the ley line. Not even for Cabeswater. Ronan came in there and all but demanded K fight him. He called him some names, basically told him to go fuck himself, and said he could get over it by fighting him. He goaded Kavinsky to take the fight in the middle of a crowd.”

Blue opened her mouth.

“And when I tried to get Gansey to stop him,” Adam continued. “He ignored me, but then he had the nerve to assume I'd leave with them. I don't need their rescue, just as much as they don't want my advice.”

“Adam-”

“No, I told Ronan I struck this thing up with K to avoid a confrontation, but what’s the first thing he does?” Adam spit the words out. “He needs to grow up.”

“So you're siding with Kavinsky?”

“I didn’t say that,” Adam said. “He could have taken the blow to his pride. He could have said ‘no.’ My point was only Kavinsky didn't start it. It wasn’t like he brought a fight to Gansey’s door.”

“Not even when he made that half-baked deal with you?”

“What did Gansey tell you?” Adam relented.

“That you went behind our backs — _again_ — and got Kavinsky to stop dreaming.”

“Shouldn’t that be enough?” Adam asked.

“I think I can speak for all of us when I say we’re impressed that you _could_ do it, but the cost was too high.”

“What are Kavinsky’s dreams worth then?” Adam asked. 

It was clear everyone but him got the memo that Adam had obviously been conned. But even on the third iteration of this conversation, Adam still didn’t understand why his friends would expect Kavinsky to stop for anything less. The fact that Kavinsky ran a one hundred percent profit off his forgeries meant next to nothing, but K was a massive show-off. Why would he stop in the name of a cause that had nothing to do with him, which in fact spited him at every turn?

“I don’t know,” Blue said. “Do you really think it’s an even trade?”

“I don’t have much else to offer him,” Adam admitted, wry and bitter. 

“Then why couldn’t you have let Ronan handle it?” 

Adam exhaled a laugh. He had just _told_ her.

Blue held up her hands in silent retraction of her question. “You wanted to avoid violence and normally I would agree. It’s only Ronan’s approach seems more appropriate this time.” 

“What makes you say that?”

“You know what they say about Kavinsky....”

“The rumors?” Adam asked, not even bothering to conceal his derision. Most people didn’t like K. Adam, through mere osmosis of attending Aglionby, knew the other Ag boys’ dislike of Kavinsky had stemmed from either distaste for new foreign money or envy of the way K ostensibly lived completely without parental guidance or care. The locals’ hatred of him was compounded by the fact that he went to Ag and what a nuisance he was, what with the speeding, the defacement of property, his crazy parties, and incidental fires. But most of these people couldn’t have traded more than a dozen words with K, unless they bought from him and even then he would guess not much more. “Have you actually spoken with him?”

“Yes,” Blue said indignantly. “It’s about the way he treats people. I mean look at what he was trying to do with Ronan.”

Adam thought about how K had interacted with Ronan; what he had seen first hand, what little he’d gotten from Ronan himself, and Kavinsky’s own version. Some of it was creepy, some of it was offensive, some of it was tragic, but all of it was something Ronan had allowed, encouraged even, until the end. 

“-He’s abusive,” Blue was inexplicably saying when Adam blinked back to the present. “...Are you sure,” she paused mid-sentence, extremely hesitant. “Maybe you’re not...seeking that out?”

It took Adam a moment to really parse her words; to grasp the absurdity of their meaning. “You think I _miss_ my dad?”

“Well, maybe unconsciously-” Blue continued uncertain.

“You think I’d go back to him like my mother forgives him every time?” Adam suggested, his hands safely braced on his hips, eyes considering her shoes against the worn wood floor. Blue asking him why he would do this was like some fucked up inversion of Adam asking her if something had happened to make Blue not want more with him. But Blue had never even met his parents. She had no business telling him anything about this. She didn’t know the first thing about what it was like to live with people like that. To call them family. “You mean the way she stays with him even though he hits her for nothing. How she’ll say it’s all her fault, that she brought it on herself. I’m seeking that out? Is that what you mean?”

Adam looked up, meeting her eyes. Blue shrunk back.

“You think I miss that, and since I can’t go back to him, I sought Kavinsky out to do that to me instead?”

Blue didn’t say anything, though her shame was a palpable thing.

“You don’t know anything about it.”

“...You’re right. I don’t,” Blue swallowed. “But doesn't it tell you something when all the people who care about you are saying the same thing?”

“I don't know what you all think is going to happen,” Adam said, holding himself rigidly still. 

“Kavinsky has the worst track record. His crew get tied up in nasty things all the time. That’s a fact,” Blue stressed. “It doesn't matter for them cause their daddies will buy off whoever will get them out of trouble, but who will get you out?”

“I can get myself out,” Adam said inflecting his words with a confidence he did not feel.

“Doesn’t Aglionby kick out boys who get arrested?” she fired back.

The image of Ronan ducking his head into the back of a cop car flashed through Adam’s mind. He knew from past instances that the Ag board wouldn’t let assault charges ride, but speeding and defacement of public property only constituted community service most of the time. His scholarship status might change that though. “Blue, I’m not going to do anything that’s going to get me arrested.”

Blue blinked at him in such a way that could not hide how stupid she thought he was being.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Adam said sharply. “Everyone’s mad at me for solving a problem no one else had the answer to. Why can’t you all just be happy this isn’t an issue anymore?”

“You can’t keep carrying all this on your shoulders alone,” Blue said, voice sad. “None of us asked you to.”

Something wicked and hot lashed through Adam and he forced himself to take several steps back. He wasn’t looking at Blue when he said, quite mildly, “I’m not alone. K traded me his dreams for his pack of dogs on my every step. They’ll help me clean up the line.”

Adam had expected some rebuttal along the lines of how he shouldn’t trust them. But none came and the silence dragged. 

When he glanced at Blue, she looked like she had been slapped. Adam had not touched her. He had not touched anything. He was on the other side of the room.

Blue swallowed but said nothing.

Adam turned and stared out the window till she left.

 

 

 

 

 

Adam's mother had few distinguishing features to her personality. Patricia Parrish was a slight woman. Unremarkable, save for her uncanny ability to nearly disappear from a room and how she could all but smell a lie on anyone who wasn't her husband. Adam foolishly had on more than one occasion underestimated this bloodhound trait of hers and landed in hot water for it from his father. It was what led her to go through his room that night Adam had pressed charges against him. 

It sounded horrible but she had always been easy to forget. With Robert Parrish towering over both of them, Adam felt he got a pass on that. Even now, he didn't think much about her back in the trailer alone with him. It didn't do Adam any good and it certainly didn't help her. She didn't want to leave. 

Adam had inherited her ability to fade into the background. He had found it useful back when he had to worry about flying under the radar and hiding his father’s handiwork from concerned teachers and guidance counselors. Adam didn’t mind that, but he had also inherited her ability to turn seemingly casual sentences into ones that cut at you cruelly. Part of it was the comment itself, the rest was the way she would say it. Her tone flippant, verging on callous, but the worst part was there was always some strain of truth to them. She could ferret out that weak point of a person and aim her words so they would tear. So he would tear.

There had never been anything soft in the Parrish trailer.

Sometimes, he’d find himself wielding her particular brand of nastiness without really meaning to. It had always been his father that Adam had been most concerned with. His father that he was worried about turning into. That rage was such a present thing. There were times when he’d have to tip toe around himself. Her brand of warfare in comparison was preferable; if only because, while it was no less devastating, her punches never left scars you could see. 

Still, Adam hated letting her passive aggressive knives-drawn sentences out of him almost as much as when he lost his temper. Even if what he had said to Blue was true, he hated it.

 

 

 

 

 

“You know what he told me the night after he and Ronan crashed my car?” Gansey demanded. 

“I’m telling you for the last time,” Adam sighed. “He’s done playing with Ronan.”

When he had arrived at Monmouth, they had been doing fine enough. Not good but they had talked in circles around last Sunday. Small pleasantries that felt wrong between them and things he could tell Gansey didn’t want to say at all, but said anyway because he was holding back. Until the awkwardness was too much and Gansey had opened his mouth, landing them right back here.

“-That he just wants to be _entertained,_ ” Gansey continued. “And yes, he might indeed be done with Ronan, but only because he's going to toy with you now.”

Adam took a leaf from K’s book and said, “That’s not been my experience.”

“The novelty hasn’t worn off yet, but once he realizes that he can’t just take all the drugs and cars from his dreams, you're what he’s gonna look to ‘entertain’ him.”

“And what exactly do you think that entails?”

“Are we going to waste our _limited time_ arguing about spoilt milk or what?” Ronan asked.

“It’s spilled milk,” Gansey corrected, after a pause.

“Really?”

“Afraid so,” Adam said, tiredly. 

If Adam were a religious man, he would consider Ronan’s comment a blessing.

It had diffused just enough of the tension for them to refocus back on to the Glendower search. With the assumption that this deal between Adam and Kavinsky would hold—of which Gansey made his dubious opinion known—than they would first have to wait for Cabeswater to fully materialize again. There was little point in searching half a forest, or worse, risking the possibility of it disappearing while they were still in it. 

But the real question was where to look next. 

So they were spitballing. Coming up with various ideas of ways to get a boundary line for Cabeswater and narrow their search even further. Ronan could ask it. Adam’s homework was to find out if it appeared to follow the ley line or if Cabeswater just overlapped at certain portions. Then there was the argument again about whether Glendower would be in a sepulcher or if they would have buried him in a cave. If the tomb was above ground, Gansey wanted to get Helen to fly them around again with a magnetometer attached to the helicopter. 

Their more or less congenial brain storming was interrupted by the sound of stylized spray paint and a solid beat.

_~Snoooooooooop~_

Adam froze, shot through with a bolt of horrific foreboding. Gansey glanced at Ronan, who let out a startled chuckle.

_~Snoooooooooooooooooooop~_

“Provocative choice, Dick,” Ronan said. “You gonna answer that?”

_~When the pimp's in the crib, ma, drop it like it’s hot~_

Gansey turned fully, confused, “I thought that was your phone?”

“If I took the time to figure out how to set a ring tone, there’s no way in hell I would pick something _that_ retro,” Ronan said, before grasping the implications of Gansey’s words. 

_~When the pigs try to get at you, park it like it's hot~_

They turned together to stare at Adam. He had let his head slump into his hand, covering his eyes. He wished he could pretend that if he ignored the song emanating from his pants pocket that it would just stop. Obviously, it would, but the fiasco which would no doubt follow, would happen regardless. Adam _thought_ he had turned the thing off. 

Adam pulled out the dream phone. The screen’s caller ID read just one letter: K set inside a pulsating green circle that asked _accept?_ Adam hit the button and shoved the phone to his ear.

“You,” he said, before Kavinsky could get a word in, “are the _worst._  I hate you.”

“Such malice!” came K’s cheery tone over the line. “Is that anyway to greet your business partner?”

“Oh, are we now?” Adam asked, tired so tired, but somehow managing sarcasm. With one hand still shielding a portion of his eyes, he was only afforded a view of Gansey’s navy blue Sperry’s. 

“Don’t you have a controlling interest in my business now?”

“I get a cut then?” 

“You’d have to come to a drop for that,” K said. “Interested?”

Adam groaned, massaging his eyes. He didn’t want to go to a drop. He didn’t want a cut of K’s forgery money. He didn’t want anything but the goddamn calm after the storm. When he opened his eyes again, Gansey still had not moved. The golden hairs on his legs from days spent in the sun did nothing to hide how rigidly tense he was. Kavinsky had set everything off again. With a phone call.

“Did I call at a bad time?” K asked, too happy to be the harbinger of destruction.

“You know perfectly well you did.”

“You could have not answered. If it was important, I would have left a message,” Kavinsky said, tone belaying the remark ‘as people do.’

“And then called again. And again and again.”

“I'm glad we understand each other.”

“I'm hanging up.”

“Ey-hey! Just a minute, babe,” K said, more serious. “I need to know if you want to eat with us later? Like dinner.”

“It’s Sunday.”

“That's _why_ I called. This is an invitation. From Jiang,” K said without further elaboration.

“You’re serious?”

“Look, he was feeling homesick. So he’s now making spring rolls and some other dish from his homeland that I won’t insult by mispronouncing and he needs to know how much to make. Which is why, from the goodness of his heart, he wanted to know if you would be coming over,” K said and then in a lower voice continued. “Though regardless we will be ordering take out as well.”

“I don’t believe you,” Adam said, even though that was too bizarre of an excuse for K to have schemed up.

“Here, talk to him yourself,” Kavinsky said and then talking away from the phone, “He doesn't believe me. You tell.”

“K, does it look like I have hands for this?” came Jiang’s voice, far away but getting closer. “Ugh! Hold the phone to my ear then.” And finally into the phone, Jiang said, “Parrish, hey! K's being an ass and yes, I'm making spring rolls and 豉  椒  雞 片, which is so hard for white boys to pronounce.”

“What is it?”

“Chicken with black bean sauce. A kind of stir-fry with vegetables. I even use some green peppers too, so it’s got a bit of a kick to it.”

“Right,” Kavinsky said speaking into the phone again. “Chicken with black bean sauce and fried deliciousness.” 

“Tell K if you’re coming,” Adam heard Jiang shout. “I don't want to not make enough!”

“So, you want some? Proko is nodding his head ‘yes.’”

Adam was aware of the silence that had permeated Monmouth. It was hard not to. It would be a miracle if Gansey and Ronan were still breathing. Adam stared at Gansey’s shoes, knowing with absolute certainty the rest of the day was ruined. He thought of going back to his room above St. Agnes. He thought about his dinner choices of top ramen or a plain peanut butter sandwich. He thought about how if K didn’t _want_ to make this a thing, he could have just texted him. “I might consider it...”

“I’ll tell Jiang you're fucking over the moon with his invite then,” K said. “Oh, what's your Chinese order?”

“Let Jiang pick.”

“Strong choice.”

“I am hanging up on you now.”

“Love you too, Ivy.”

It was a joke, surely, but still Adam made an odd choking sound that he wished K hadn't heard. But there was no way he couldn’t have with such an abnormally clear connection. 

_Damn dream phone._

“See you tonight,” K parted, the smile in his voice entirely too smug as he hung up first. Adam stared down at the phone’s dark screen. 

_Damn Kavinsky._

If the silence hadn’t been weighing exponentially on Adam before, it was claustrophobic now. When he finally looked up, Gansey was wearing the expression he reserved for situations that required all of his patience and tolerance. Adam took a deep breath.

“You have a phone now,” Gansey said.

“Were you gonna tell us?” Ronan asked, still standing off to the side. Adam was amazed he wasn’t pacing. 

“Depends,” Adam answered, looking at Gansey. “Are you gonna make a big deal out of this?”

“Depends,” Gansey replied, equally cautious and chilly. “Are you paying for that?”

“No one paid anything for this,” Adam said rolling his eyes.

“So it's alright for him to pull that out on the ley line’s dime, but the world would have ended if I had added you to my plan?”

“This isn’t like you paying for me to have a phone.”

“No, just him throwing around a different kind of privilege.”

“This isn’t me at his pity-”

“ _It wouldn’t have been pity,_ ” Gansey ground out.

“-this is a part of our deal,” Adam said, even though it hadn't been. Not explicitly. It might as well have though. Retrospectively, Adam knew Kavinsky had been planning on it anyway when they shook in the clearing.

“The deal where he gets to keep track of you wherever you go?” Gansey demanded. “You ask him if it's got a homing beacon in it, so he can watch you move around Henrietta?”

Adam looked blankly up at Gansey from his seat on the side of the bed. Gansey made it sound a lot creepier than Adam’s logic had first accepted, but that didn’t change any of the facts. “The deal was running with him. This is a part of that.”

Gansey let out a harsh unamused laugh. “You know,” he said watching Adam with a hard clarity. “With all the shit he gives Ronan for being like a dog, he sure put a collar around you real quick.”

All the air in Adam’s lungs vanished. Gansey’s words were as effective as a sharp kick to his gut; like the shock of blooming pain from his father’s boot. 

He stared, reminding himself that he didn’t have to stand that pain anymore. Adam would not let his father do that again. They had a pending court date to prove that Adam would never let it happen again. And _Gansey_ sure as hell was not allowed to make him feel like that either.

His anger had been flicked on with that one comment; pure, white hot rage momentarily drowning out the pain. Adam was standing before he could catch himself. When he did, Adam consciously _stopped_ as he tried to reign in that wrath and distill it somewhere where it could not lash out without his permission. Eyes shut tight, he felt lightheaded, fingers numb.

He would never be rid of this. _He would never be rid of this._ But he could control it. It would not control him. Not like his father. He would control himself.

Finally when Adam thought he had it wrapped up tight, he let his limbs go from their rigor mortis-like stillness and took a new breath in his lungs. Adam blinked spots that looked like leaves from his vision. When he met Gansey’s eyes, all Adam saw was disgust.

In that moment it was fine, because Adam didn’t like what he saw in Gansey either. For all Gansey could be unintentionally offensive, Adam knew he had said _those_ words on purpose. Despite not understanding Adam’s pride, Gansey still knew where to aim to make him hurt the most.

Adam had been fooling himself. They hadn't been getting anywhere today. But there was nothing that hadn’t already been said. He was gripping the dream phone so hard he thought it might shatter. Adam needed to leave before he did something he’d regret. 

“Fuck you,” Adam told Gansey.

“Adam,” Ronan started, arm reaching to catch at Adam as he made for the door.

“Don’t,” Adam said, ducking him, before he was out on the landing and running down the stairs.

 

 

 

 

 

After he had peeled out of the lot and all but sped to a screeching halt the next block’s stop sign, Adam checked the time on his phone. The shitbox’s dash clock had always been dead. It was past three. Heading straight to Kavinsky’s wasn’t an option. Adam couldn’t sit around the basement and pretend like everything was okay.

Instead, Adam dropped by Boyd’s and picked up a few tickets for routine oil changes and a brake inspection. K had texted him several times, but Adam had only deigned a succinct ‘fuck you.’ This seemed to have gotten his mood across better than his silence, because Kavinsky had stopped texting him.

When that was done and it was coming up to the societally appointed dinner hour, Adam took a circuitous route to Kavinsky’s. Cabeswater had been brushing at the edges of his mind the whole time; calm and calming. But it wasn’t half what he needed and the habitual tasks at Boyd’s had only done so much. 

It still felt like his guts had been replaced with maggots. Squirming and twisting and crawling over each other; anxious and hurt and just as angry.

Cabeswater was pressing at him, like it often did when the forest needed him to do something. Adam pulled over and took a breath, trying to clear his mind and discern what Cabeswater was trying to get across to him. 

Did it want something? He mentally gave it a nudge. Suddenly the forest was pulling at his memories: Adam’s fingers smoothing over a Christmas package from his grandmother Merriell, him unwrapping one birthday present from his parents, his mother bandaging up a scuffed knee, him unwrapping the gift of a tie Gansey had given him last year, then Adam punching Blue’s wall. Adam couldn’t see the thread that tied them together. It didn’t want something. It was offering...offering to do what?

Adam weighed his options. He knew he should be wary of loosing his body. He _was_ , but feeling more reckless than usual and no less angry, he pushed the fear aside.

Adam let Cabeswater in. 

He felt the old power of the forest move through him. He could sense that it wasn’t wholly a forest just then. It was something bigger, older than when the first sapling began to grow. Cabeswater moved through him like water, a cool, tingly balm over parts of himself that never _felt_ anything. Parts that weren’t even physical. It slipped through him, right past his perpetual exhaustion, his annoyance at K, until it reached Adam’s anger. 

Cabeswater seemed to hold his rage for a moment, waiting for a protest from Adam. Adam didn’t understand what the forest was getting at. Yes, obviously that was the source of his agitation. Cabeswater seemed to understand Adam’s confusion better then he did, because it abruptly disappeared taking the rage and indignation at Gansey’s comment with it. 

Adam let out a wracked breath. 

The loss was palpable like the cutting off of a rotting and diseased limb. Adam focused on getting his breathing back in order. It was easier than he might have expected. 

The rage was _gone._

Objectively, Adam knew why he was still angry. The logic of his response to the events of the afternoon hadn’t gone with the emotions. But Adam could _think_ again. The anger wasn’t breathing down his neck. He didn’t feel like he was a tick from exploding. It was amazing.

He felt Cabeswater prodding him again, but he hadn’t thrown his walls back up yet. The forest was using his memories again, pulling instances where he recognized the fleetingness of moments, clouds moving fast over the moon, nails flying off the workbench in his father’s carport, Gansey’s eyes cutting into him hours earlier, stock footage from some movie the hour hands moving faster than a stopwatch. Adam pieced together that Cabeswater was trying to tell him this exorcism of his rage was a temporary thing.

Adam would take it back when the time came, till then he would bask in the peace.

 

 

 

 

 

K and Skov were waiting on the three step up to the front door of the McMansion when Adam parked on the street.

“Parrish,” Kavinsky started, getting to his feet.

“Don’t speak to me.”

“They were gonna find out eventually. Would you rather it be now or later?”

“Are you serious?” Adam demanded, before trying to move past them.

“Hold up,” K said putting a hand in Adam’s path. “This is a special occasion. Jiang so rarely gets culinary and you’re not gonna ruin this.”

“You have like a horrible aura hanging around you right now,” Skov explained.

“I should punch you in the face,” Adam said to Kavinsky, letting his momentum carry him back down the steps and onto the semi-circle driveway.

“Why haven't you then?”

Adam clenched his fists, but didn’t close the distance between them.

“Look, I did you a favor man,” Kavinsky said.

“How'd you figure that?” Adam asked, irritated by the presumption.

“You were going to have another argument when they found out about the phone anyway,” Kavinsky said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Might as well have lumped it in with the aftershocks of the big one.”

“...why would we fight about me getting a phone?” Adam asked. Though he had been expecting a fight, there was no reason for Kavinsky to have.

“You must think I'm fucking stupid, man,” K said. 

“Seriously, what the hell?” Adam demanded.

“You tryin’ to tell me someone like Dick Gansey hasn’t offered to _give you_ a phone at least a half a dozen times since you met? He hasn’t tried to get you on his plan? Of fucking course he has and in his typical condescending manner too, I’m sure. So yeah I knew there was going to be a fight.”

Adam’s frown deepened. _Why did that make sense?_

“Now are you going to take a swing at me so we can put this behind us or what?” K asked.

“That's not how I solve my problems.”

“Right,” Kavinsky said, back to looking amused. “Then how _do_ you want to solve this? Because you ruining Jiang's dinner by sulking isn't an option.”

“Try seething.”

“Either way-”

“If you two aren’t going to fight,” Skov cut in, bored. “I’m going inside. I’m hungry.”

“You seriously don’t want to take a swing at me?” K demanded, eyebrow raised.

As tempting as the offer was, Adam had promised himself that he would never punch someone out of anger. 

His anger had this tendency to ruin Adam's relationships, friendship or otherwise. Not that long ago Adam had even killed one with a punch. His first month at Ag, Adam had been kind of friends with a guy named Caleb Tadwry. They were lab partners in freshmen bio and had English and Latin together. Although Adam was the only painfully obvious scholarship student in their graduating class, Caleb’s good humor extended to him. Caleb had included him. 

It had been nice the first week. 

Adam had taken Caleb up on his invitation to sit with him during lunch. Even though Adam knew he should have been finishing his meal quickly and taking the rest of the free period in the library, getting a jump start on the homework that he wouldn’t have time to complete _at_ home. Not listening to the daily gos with Caleb’s friends.

As much as Adam felt like he was trying, it was a stilted acquaintance. Adam didn’t realize why till the second week. It should have been obvious from the beginning. Caleb’s family was from old money and they still had plenty of it.

Adam tacked it up to being unused to having all that money thrown around right under his nose. And that was certainly some of it. But Caleb just didn’t get what it meant to be dirt poor and, more importantly, he wasn’t going to try.

Perhaps to someone else they would seem like little things and, maybe taken by themselves, they could have been. But these micro aggressions were thorns which caught in Adam’s skin. Every time Caleb asked Adam to dip out on his shift at Boyd’s to come out with him for tacos or wondering why Adam didn’t just put it on his credit card, when Adam refused to buy himself a candy bar because he had finally been goaded into admitting that he didn’t have any cash on him. 

Adam would never forget how he was struck silent at this comment. How foolish he had felt. Not for not having the money, but for thinking that he should waste his time with someone who didn’t get it on such a fundamental level. Caleb didn’t understand how much _time_ it took for Adam to even be in a place to buy himself candy. How many hours of manual labor paying minimum wage.

Adam politely began to distance himself, though if he was being honest he was quite distant normally. But Caleb didn’t take the hint. 

Adam’s annoyance had built on it day after day after day, Caleb blissfully ignorant to it all, until one comment —Adam couldn’t even remember what it was now— caused him to snap. Adam just up and punched Caleb, in the face no less. It had been a sloppy punch, Adam knew that much. He had been on the receiving end of his father’s fists long enough to know.

Horrified Adam stood towering over Caleb where he fell, running through all the possibilities and all the consequences of his actions. The word: EXPELLED EXPELLED EXPELLED wouldn’t stop flashing through his mind. He was aware that Caleb was staring at him like some Eldridge horror, before something in the other boy shrugged and shifted and he barely looked at Adam at all, like all the other Aglionby boys. Which was to say they looked _through_ him.

Caleb just got up and dusted his slacks off, before giving Adam the most blasé of side eyes and walking off. 

Adam had been sure that punch would ruin everything. He was going to be called into the disciplinarian's office the next day and probably expelled. The Ag board had made a mistake, the administrator would tell him. They didn’t want Adam’s sort sullying their halls. They had hoped surrounding Adam by all this higher learning would override fifteen years of the common violence he had grown up in, but it would appear they were wrong. They had already begun his transfer back into the public school system. He would receive a check in the mail for a partial refund of this semester’s tuition. The scene would go on and on, Adam’s brain supplying new and crueler additions. 

Adam spent a solid week agonizing over this, but ultimately nothing came of it. 

Caleb apparently hadn’t bothered to go to the administration. Though they never spoke again, the incident haunted Adam. With Caleb’s abrupt disavowal of him, Adam Parrish was confirmed the social pariah he would be in Aglionby till he met Richard Campbell Gansey the Third in the fall of their junior year. It wasn’t so long ago. 

It didn’t matter if he had been stewing in contempt for hours or if he snapped again, Adam wouldn’t punch K over this.

_Kavinsky certainly made him want to._

“No,” Adam said. 

“You heard him,” Kavinsky shrugged. “Poison Ivy doesn’t solve his problems with punches.”

Adam watched Skov slouch inside. 

When he turned back to Kavinsky, K’s eyebrows were raised, his expression was ...waiting, appraising. 

Kavinsky respected him as an adversary, at least when there was the forest at Adam’s back. He wasn’t sure what K thought of him without it. Adam was taller than Kavinsky, so he had that working in his favor. He stepped closer speaking the language of intimidation and just in case their voices carried in through the open front door. 

“I don't want you deliberately interfering in my relationships with Gansey or Ronan again. You told me this wasn’t about getting back at them. I had been inclined to believe you, but pull another stunt like this...” Adam trailed off.

“Are you threatening me?” K asked in a disbelieving scoff of a laugh. “ _Again?_ Here?”

“It’s not a threat. It’s a fact. You will stop.”

Kavinsky tilted his head to one side, eyes slanted, taking Adam in. Eventually, he said, “Usually the terms of a deal aren’t altered once agreed upon.”

“This isn’t apart of the deal,” Adam corrected. “This is friendly advice. You will stop.”

K continued watching Adam, intent.

“Friendly advice....between friends?” Kavinsky threw back at him with a rude grin and a quirk of the eyebrows.

He was irrepressible, but Adam wasn’t sure they were there yet.

“If that was a ‘no’ you would have said straight out,” Kavinsky said, guessing at Adam’s thought process. “Alright. But if I had known this was the only time you’d let me fuck with them I would have done it when I could have seen their faces. I really don't need you mad at me for taking advantage of this like anyone else with half a grudge would.”

“You didn’t think that might piss me off?”

K shrugged. “Not this much.”

“I was expecting more resistance,” Adam said, suspicious that K would cave so easy.

“Well, I’m not the only one who will have to deal with you acting like a pissy bitch, am I?” K asked, jerking his head back at the house.

“You are not helping yourself,” Adam pointed out.

“Do I need to? I already told you I won’t mess with them,” K said and then in half disbelief, half whittling persuasion asked, “You really don't want us to give them even a little grief?”

Adam shook his head.

“Let me know when you change your mind,” K said and then inexplicably, “Glad we got this settled. Come on, man, let’s hug it out.”

“I don’t want to?” Adam said, but it came out as more of a question than he intended.

K eyed him critically. “You may not settle your disagreements with fists, but I close my resolutions with hugs so-” he made a come closer gesture with his hands.

“A hug after a punch?”

“Between friends,” K agreed amiably. “Seriously, man, when was the last time you even had one?”

Adam thought back and realized the last real hug he had was with Blue. It had been a few weeks ago, well before he had gone to Gansey's parents house.

“If you have to think about it, it's been too long. C’mon,” Kavinsky said and before Adam could say anything Kavinsky's arms were around him in the most unreciprocated hug he had ever been subjected to. K continued, “People seem to be under the impression that guys shouldn’t hug, which is total shit....”

Adam did not move. In fact, he was rather stunned this was actually happening. 

“What are you doing? Did nobody ever teach you how to hug?”

Adam went even more rigid.

“Shit. That’s fucked,” K said taking Adam’s tense silence for an answer. “Forget I asked, man. We’ll teach you-”

“I know how to hug,” Adam cut him off, derisive and pulling away. Offended even though, if Adam was being fair, he couldn’t exactly fault Kavinsky for the assumption. It wasn’t his parents that taught him, after all. 

“Then prove it,” K said, attempting to re-engulf him.

“You’re literally pinning my arms to my sides,” Adam protested. 

K stepped off, unimpressed, “Alright, Ivy, show me what you’ve got.”

Adam glanced at the door behind K. The other’s were probably wondering what was taking them so long. The sooner he got this over with the sooner they could eat.

Adam opened his arms and gave K a nod. Kavinsky closed the distance between them again, arms wrapping easily around his torso. Adam’s arms went around K’s shoulders and gripped him tight in return. Kavinsky was solid weight leaning into him, his arms were bare and cool; residual effects of sitting out in the light breeze blowing through the neighborhood. Adam breathed in the traces of sweat from some unknown exertion earlier in the day, and K’s shampoo.

After a long strangely peaceful minute Kavinsky said, “You’re good at this, babe.”

Adam let out a soft huff of breath and loosened his grip. Kavinsky took the hint and moved back.

“Who taught _you_?” Adam asked.

“Good question,” K said, something sly crept into his expression, “My uncle Bog. Let’s do this again sometime.”

Adam shrugged. He wasn’t going to say ‘no.’ 

 

 

 

 

 

Inside, Jiang was standing at the head of the disused breakfast table surveying his spread. 

“Oh, you made it!” Jiang exclaimed, turning to direct them to their seats. Adam noted with some humor when he turned around that Jiang had on a tee shirt with a maniacal smiling kitten wearing a horrible pink bow, huge blue eyes, and the words ‘I could burn this place down.’ A choice shirt to wear on the day he took over the kitchen. “What the fuck was the hold up anyway?”

“K being an ass,” Swan supplied in a tone that said they had been over this before. “We were starting to wonder if Poison Ivy might have killed you.”

Proko eyed Adam.

“Skov made it sound like there will be blood out there,” Jiang said. 

“And you believed him?” K asked. 

“As if we'd still be in here if we did,” Proko scoffed. 

“I'd snag front row seats to that,” Swan agreed.

“Some friends I have,” K said with an air of suffering.

“Hey, we waited for your ass,” Swan said, taking the seat next to Jiang. “I think that ranks us pretty high.”

Once everyone was seated, Skov reached for one of the spring rolls. 

“Ay, hey! Not yet,” Jiang stopped him and he lifted up his phone. “Let me get a pic first!” 

“You don’t even have that many followers,” Skov groaned.

“Shut up, Blake,” Swan said.

“You don’t need to be a bitch,” Proko agreed. “We’re all hungry.”

“Everyone look happy and hungry!” Jiang called, holding his phone up at a cramped angle to get them all in the shot with the food. He snapped a few in quick succession and sat back down. Swan leaned over to check the photo before Jiang added the details to his post.

“Tagging all of you takes forever,” Jiang said, setting his phone down on the table. “So tag yourselves. Go ahead and dig in.”

“Oh my god, Parrish, you don't have an Insta yet, do you?” Swan demanded, a heaping scoop of stir fry dripping on his plate.

“A what?” Adam parroted back, just to fuck with them.

Five sets of eyes snapped to him. Jiang actually looked a bit horrified.

“I'm kidding,” Adam said after a moment.

“Fuckkkkk,” Skov said in a slightly despairing tone. “You’re good.”

“You and me, Ivy. After dinner,” Jiang said. “We're setting you up.”

“Alright,” Adam agreed. He didn’t see himself using Instagram much but it wouldn’t hurt having one. Maybe it could even help to prove to college boards that he not only kept a 4.0 in advanced classes, but also had a life outside work. 

Adam was surprised the evening was not a total wash. The calm that came with Cabeswater taking his anger at Gansey probably had a lot to do with it, but he couldn't deny how the rest laid squarely at the feet of these other boys. Jiang's cooking was good, not that Adam had much to compare it to. The last time he remembered having had Chinese was a summer he'd stayed with his grandmother years ago. The green pepper indeed did have a kick and he downed glass after glass of water unused to the spice, but finding he enjoyed it anyway.

“You totally had me,” Skov was saying again once they had cleared all the plates and were settling back in the living room. “You are too good at that deadpan to pull that kind of shit, man. Next thing you know you’ll be telling me you haven’t seen _Harry Potter_ or had a blow job and I’ll believe you.”

Adam locked eyes with Kavinsky. 

“But he hasn’t,” K said with a smirk.

“I _haven’t_ seen _Harry Potter_ , but I’d like to know why you’re so certain about that second one,” Adam asked archly. 

K’s smirk deepened and he raised an eyebrow, but before he could say a word, Skov was sitting forward.

“You haven’t seen _Harry Potter_?” Skov repeated incredulous. “Really? But you’ve _read_ it?”

“K, _why?_ ” Swan groaned.

“...No.”

“OH MY GOD!” Skov all but shrieked. “YOU HAVEN’T READ _HARRY POTTER_?”

“Chill out, man,” Adam said.

“NO, I WON’T ‘CHILL OUT!’” Skov said nearly hysterical. He stomped over to where Adam was, shoving the sleeve of his dirty green thermal up to reveal a triangle with a line set in a circle in the middle of it on the inside of his arm just above the elbow. The black ink was clearly proof of _something_ , but Adam hadn’t the foggiest clue of what. 

“I don’t know what that is,” Adam admitted, giving into the chuckle that bubbled out of him at the intensity of Skov’s despair. It was just a movie.

Skov let out a horrible, desolate wail. Proko and Jiang meanwhile were all but falling over each other to stifle their laughter.

“Babe, calm down,” K said finally interceding. “We’re gonna make him watch ‘em.”

Skov was shaking his head, expression worried and upset. “I’m gonna make a list,” he promised.

“Okay,” Adam said, a little worried by the way Skov was looking into his eyes. He thought they looked a bit watery.

“When I’m done, I'm gonna have you tell me what on it you’ve seen,” Skov said, the logic of the steps he was outlining seeming to calm his nerves. “And we’re gonna watch everything you haven’t.”

“I’ll tell you right now,” Adam said. “That’s gonna be most of them.”

“Oh, he’ll hold your hand through all of them if need be,” Proko said. “Trust me.”

 

 

 

 

 

It had been a struggle for Adam and Persephone to find time for another session. 

Freelance psychic that she was, Persephone had a month’s calendar peppered with clients scheduled harem scarem; a good portion of which were collaborative readings with Maura and Calla, who also had busy schedules. This would have been difficult enough to work around even without factoring in Adam’s own impossible, if more concrete, schedule.

So when she left him a message with the church secretary that she had an opening Tuesday morning when he miraculously didn’t have work, Adam jumped on it.

Even better, he had thought at the time, the hour she had requested was early enough in the day that Kavinsky wouldn’t necessarily be expecting him. If he did wonder why Adam hadn’t shown up sooner, he could plea oversleeping. On some level, he knew it was going against their deal, but Adam _had_ said he had other obligations. His sessions with Persephone weren’t free time and K, despite what Gansey thought, did not own him.

Retrospectively, Adam never could pinpoint the exact reason why he hadn’t just told Kavinsky that he had something to do. Lied and said it was an early shift at work. Or just told the truth, because Adam was going to have to tell him sometime. But he’d figured that conversation could wait and he’d been more preoccupied with figuring out how to phrase the question of how to remain linked with one’s body in a way she would actually answer it. 

Neither of these objections were particularly strong. As Adam’s connection with Cabeswater was improving daily and really Adam should have known that K’s interest in his ability was it’s innateness more than anything else. 

Tuesday morning he got up early and drove over to Fox Way. Briefly, they went over what she had covered with him from the week of the Fourth, before they moved on to scrying and what she wanted to work with him on this time.

Towards the end of their session he finally saw an opportunity to explain what had happened in the clearing and ask his question. 

“Yes, that is a danger,” Persephone nodded. “We'll be getting to that soon. Until then, I want you to practice being mindful of your body. Always have some portion of your mind thinking of it and don't let yourself wander too far in. You really should develop this skill before we move forward.” 

Adam was not reassured by this and it seemed Persephone could sense it, because she continued.

“Loosing your body like that is always a possibility even if you don’t feel like it is. Being aware of the danger is a part of its prevention. Would you recognize how you felt before you almost lost yourself?”

“I believe so.”

“That’s your threshold right now, untethered. Consider it the radius of how far out you can safely go. You should not be pushing at it yet. First, practice being mindful of your body and stay within that radius.”

Of course, she hadn’t given him any practical advice for how to do this. He didn’t much see the importance of waiting to learn about something so life and death, but Adam could wait if they were getting to it soon. He had half been worried she hadn’t intended to cover it at all. 

They finished only a little after he had expected. Adam did not have time to ask her what she thought of Cabeswater relieving him of his rage for a few hours, though he was curious if there was a precedent for that kind of assistance/interference.

Driving from Blue’s neighborhood with its small houses, typically bungalows, and the decent half-attended yards was a direct contrast to the massive tract-style mansions where Kavinsky lived. It was late enough that teams of yard help were out mowing the already perfect lawns and trimming the straight hedges. He pulled in, behind Swan’s Golf. K would be puttering around, probably, and Swan might be reading. But everyone else would still be sleeping.

This was not what Adam found when he let himself in K’s front door. 

Quiet mumbling from the kitchen. 

“I think K needs another happy pill,” Proko’s voice rang out clear to the foyer.

There was Skov’s scoffed laugh. 

K’s voice was indistinct but the tone was one Adam was familiar with. After years of enduring his father’s moods, Adam could read the emotional timbre of a room without ever setting foot in it. He knew he would be entering the kitchen at his own risk.

Adam stepped in to find everyone leaning or sitting around the island, gallon of chocolate milk, fresh take out coffee, and a box of donuts.

“Hey, champ,” Kavinsky greeted, his eyes sharp on Adam immediately, as he drew out the nickname long and taunting. 

It wasn’t so much that Kavinsky was angry. He was adversarial and provoking, but Adam had not yet seen K properly mad. Adam hadn’t seen Kavinsky at anything other than a simmer. He wondered what it was like not to snap from cold water to boiling rage at the slightest infraction.

It made Adam wonder if he wasn’t merely simmering in anger all the time. 

The others shifted uncomfortably. They weren’t stupid. If there had been any suspicion at Adam’s sudden and immediate integration—Proko certainly knew something was up—this would confirm more was going on. 

“Hey.”

Skov proceeded to eat another donut.

“So,” Kavinsky asked faux-casual. “Where have _you_ been?”

The story told itself. Kavinsky and some of the others had gone out for donuts. While out, they had swung by St. Agnes to pick Adam up, but found his car gone and him not answering his door. No big deal. They probably just missed him heading over, but when they arrived back at K’s and found Adam wasn’t there either, it wasn’t just weird. It was a violation of their deal. 

Kavinsky would have been justified to be angry. It was Adam who was in the wrong this time. This was quite a serious offense, one with no prescribed sanction, save lighting Cabeswater up. Adam assumed he would have felt it if K decided to go that route and K was only annoyed. Adam wondered what K was holding out for instead. If there was anything he could wheedle out of Adam aside from maybe a free pass on a big dream thing.

“I had a meeting,” Adam said, unsure why Kavinsky was insisting on having this conversation in front of an audience.

“What kind of meeting?” Skov demanded. “Like AA?”

K glared at him. Skov must have felt part of his soul melting because he glanced at Kavinsky, before his eyes doubled-back alarmed at the intensity of the murder daggers K was shooting at him. “What?”

Swan nudged him with a significant look. Skov glanced between all of them before holding up his hands in a universal ‘not my business’ gesture.

Mollified, Kavinsky turned back to Adam, “A meeting with _who_?” 

“I meet with one of the psychics from Fox Way,” Adam said. 

“For magician advice?” K guessed, leaning back on his stool. His eyes were hard and intent, but the corner of his lips was quirking in a smirk; tone not entirely serious, not entirely joking. “This was one of those obligations you mentioned, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

The silence lasted a whole minute.

“I want to come next time,” Kavinsky said finally, locking eyes with Adam.

“You can’t just-” Adam broke off, unsure if this was even an argument he wanted to spend his energy fighting. Once he and Persephone got to actually scrying, Kavinsky would get bored anyway. Who wanted to watch two people stare into a bowl for an hour? And that was assuming Persephone would even let him sit in. If the psychics’ reaction to all of them—and Ronan in particular—was anything to go by, she would probably ask K to wait around the block. “Fine,” Adam said. “But if Persephone tells you to leave, you’ll need to go.”

“Fair enough,” K said.

Proko pushed the box of donuts at him.

 

 

 

 

 

They weren’t even through the second week of their deal and each already had a transgression to their name. Clearly, he and K were still working out the kinks. But it was probably better to sort out all those misunderstandings now, when they could still break off the deal with minimal losses on both sides, than come across this down the road and all that wasted time later.

K had been quite open with Adam on his experiences with Cabeswater, so much so that Adam felt obligated to reciprocate in kind. Adam hadn’t decided what he could trust Kavinsky with yet, but letting Kavinsky come with him to fix the line and now on at least one session with Persephone only seemed fair. They were big steps that he had given over with little issue, even if everything in him hazarded caution. In Adam’s experience, being open with people wasn’t generally the best choice or, often enough, even an option. Back in Fall of their junior year, his hand had been forced with Gansey and Ronan. They’d seen more than he’d felt comfortable with and pushed him to grow. Having real friends would do that it seemed. 

A week and a half after the Fourth, Henrietta hadn’t experienced any more of the strange power outages. Though Cabeswater was still not fully back. Adam was surprised K had been abiding their terms so far. That it was Adam who had been the first to break their deal and that it hadn’t ended the forest in fire. He honestly wanted to ask Kavinsky where his will power had come from, but the others were always around. 

Apparently, while Adam was at work one day Skov had asked K to dream him up some kind of trick deck for his skateboard. K had given him a flat ‘no,’ which had caused a few ripples. Unless he was in a mood, Kavinsky was always down for a challenging forgery. While a deck wasn’t exactly a difficult dream, it wasn’t like K had much better to do. Naturally, Skov demanded why not?

K claimed he wouldn't. Not that he _couldn't_ , which was the truth, but that he wouldn’t. Kavinsky had decided to stop dreaming stuff up on the fly. K had proclaimed he would dream on Sundays, magnanimously cutting back in order to help the forest and their new friend Adam. His explanation was even more bizarre than the truth. Later that night when they were alone in the hallway, K conspiratorially told him Skov had been horrified. 

 

 

 

 

 

It was only the next morning on his way to work when Noah appeared in the passenger seat, that Adam let out the metaphorical breath he had been holding; finally certain he had done the right thing.

“Feeling better?” Adam asked, then mentally cringing. _What did ghosts even feel?_

“Yes, much,” Noah said. 

He was more subdued than Adam tended to see him with the others, but this was normal for when they were alone together. What mattered to Adam was how clearly himself Noah was now than he had been before and, it seemed, fully corporeal at least. Everything was so messed up. 

“That wasn’t a stupid question,” Noah continued. “I do still feel. It’s just in a different way than what you mean.”

Adam sighed. Even if Noah could apparently read his mind, that didn’t mean Adam wanted to be reminded of it “Can you not do that?”

“You don’t speak often enough,” Noah pointed out. “It never bothered you before you knew.” 

“It’s creepy.”

“You’ll just have to get used to it,” Noah said. “Besides you’ve been communicating mentally with a forest for the past month. That’s just as creepy.”

Adam took the opportunity of being stopped at a four way to give his eyes a brief and satisfying rub. He was so tired. 

“Thank you, Adam.”

Adam thought about correcting him, telling Noah that it hadn’t been _for_ him. That his renewed presence was merely a by-factor, but every way he thought to phrase it sounded horrible, so none of them passed his lips.

“I know,” Noah spoke in to the silence as if Adam’s thoughts _had_ been words. Adam gripped the steering wheel tighter. “I may not have been the driving factor but I was one. You didn’t have to do that.”

Adam felt his hackles rise. 

“I didn’t mean it like that!” Noah protested. “You had all your own reasons. All I meant was you didn’t have to think of me at all.”

Some sharp sadness shot down Adam’s diaphragm. Noah shouldn’t have to settle for being forgotten all the time. That he had come to expect it was...

“I’d be a pretty shitty friend if I hadn’t,” Adam admitted reluctantly. “But really, I thought —if this deal ended up working— that you’d be annoyed with me like everyone else.” 

“Well, I can't be very mad at you, can I?” Noah asked, pulling at the sleeve of his Ag sweater. “I hated having to draw on Blue like that. She doesn't say anything about it, but it drains her. Like the dreamers with the line.”

Adam thought of the all the reasons that his friends couldn’t give him and wondered, “Do they know something I don’t?”

“No,” Noah said. “They’re your friends and they’re worried about you, Adam.”

“I can handle myself and Kavinsky.”

“Obviously,” Noah giggled. “But you know better than most, logic doesn’t always trump emotion.”

Adam’s mouth twisted down. He didn’t say any of the things he was thinking.

“But,” Noah said drawing out the word. “You could always let me come sometime and I’ll tell the others your fine.”

Adam glanced over at Noah. Offering to come _with_ Adam, that was the opposite reaction to this deal than any of the others had. Hell, it probably hadn’t even crossed any of their minds. All the same, Adam didn’t think it would be so easy. “You don’t really expect that to placate them?”

“It couldn’t hurt.”

“I don’t want them talking about me,” Adam admitted. 

“You know they’re doing it anyway,” Noah said, his mouth went uneven and the smudge near his eye darkened.

“You really want to come?”

“I offered,” Noah reminded him. “I would have just shown up, but I don’t think you would have liked that.”

“Will they even be able to see you?” Adam asked, feeling like an ass, but it was an issue.

“You’d be surprised,” Noah said.

“What does that mean?”

“I've been around here long before Gansey moved to Henrietta last year.”

A cryptic response. Adam wondered if that was supposed to make sense, but didn’t think pushing would bring any clarification. He switched streams slightly, “But K ignores you.”

“He ignored you too,” Noah returned and then before Adam could ask. “He knows more than he lets on.” 

“About the ley line or Cabeswater?”

“Both,” Noah said and again he cut Adam off before he could even articulate the question. “No, you need to ask him yourself.”

“I’ll ask him if he minds you coming,” Adam said. It would be better to give K some sort of heads up about this. Something told Adam that Kavinsky wouldn’t appreciate an unannounced guest. 

“Please do,” Noah said buoyantly. “If the line is stable like this, I should be able to show up on whatever day you choose.”

 

 

 

 

 

Even though Adam now had a car, the pack still made carpool arrangements with him more often then not. If Adam were feeling charitable, he would have said this was a caveat of his deal with K. However, he was sure they —particularly Proko and Jiang— were too embarrassed to be seen with the shitbox in their formation. 

This was purely conjecture as the only time anyone had spoken of his car was a semi-ironic conversation that had started out when Kavinsky, staring down the long line of cars at the fairgrounds, asked him: “You like the colors on that thing?”

‘That thing’ was what K had taken to calling Adam’s shitbox. Adam shrugged, glancing to where he’d parked it down at the end. The tri-colored reject stuck out like a sore thumb next to all the gleaming white mitsus. Adam honestly didn’t care as long as it ran.

“Can I dream you a new coat of paint?” K asked.

“What?” Adam asked blindsided. Really he should probably be used to K’s creative dreaming but bizarre stuff like that still got him. 

“It doesn’t really strike me as your colors....” K mused.

“My colors? Why does that matter?”

“How can you ask that?” K demanded, way too offended for such a menial topic. “You spend all your time with Dick, who let’s face it should invest less time in, fucking, aesthetic and more in actual function. Then there’s Lynch zipping around in his father’s bimmer like it was the gun he doesn’t think he needs to carry...”

“The point?” Adam interjected.

“ _Cars are an introduction_ ,” K said. “Like when they roll up, the owner’s are saying: this is how I see myself.”

“I don’t think of it that way,” Adam said. He hoped his hard stare also said that he _couldn’t_ see it that way. “Plus, you just said it shouldn’t be form over function.”

“Touché,” K said, pointing at Adam with the butt of his lighter. “But form can serve function. Getting back to my point: the paint. Now, the hood I could see. That shade of brown suits you. But the other colors—that grey especially—don’t really scream Adam Parrish to me.”

Adam grimaced. He hadn't told any of them exactly how he’d gotten the car. 

“Ah, c’mon! That’s just my opinion!” K exclaimed, misinterpreting Adam’s frown. “If that’s your idea of style-” He broke off making a helpless hand gesture. “But, at least, let me try to convince you. I’m thinking...iridescent hot pink.”

Adam raised an eyebrow. “You can’t be serious.”

“Any solid color would be an improvement,” he said with a playful smirk. “Face it.”

“So the pink, the iridescent pink is what? So I can match Swan?” Adam asked. Swan’s Golf was a glossy drug-trip purple, that changed colors at the slightest of movements. It hadn’t struck Adam as dream work initially, but then what of K’s forgeries had? Working at Boyd’s, Adam had seen that kind of paint job before; a muscle car of a now Ag alum, who’s father was in an infamous post-rock band. Swan’s paint had merely seemed a better quality. Now Adam was reconsidering this assessment. “And your group can officially be known as the town’s only ‘gay gang.’ A literal speeding advertisement: ‘THESE ARE THE QUEERS YOUR MOTHER WARNED YOU ABOUT,’” Adam blocked out each word with his hand in the air in front of them.

K smiled at him listlessly. “You say that like it’d be a bad thing.”

Adam rolled his eyes.

“I’m serious. You’d wouldn’t have a problem with that, would you?” K pressed, demanding a real answer. He was leaning forward, not menacing. Not quite, but intent, clearly interested— no, no, _invested_ in Adam’s answer. Adam turned to stare out beyond the bank of mitsus. 

“I just don’t like people in my business,” Adam admitted reluctantly. That was all he had to say on the issue. 

“Oh ho!” K laughed and clapped his hands together, with the air of a man who had won a bet with himself. “Fair enough. How about an iridescent baby pink then?”

“As if that’s some sort of concession,” Adam huffed, but he had turned away to hide how the corners of his mouth were quirking up. “I’m not letting you paint my car, let alone dream me a fresh coat. What it looks like hardly matters to me unless it effects the running.”

K opened his mouth to say something, probably about form and function again, but Adam continued on as if he didn’t see.

“It’s not necessary and more importantly, I don’t want one,” Adam reasserted.

“Fine,” K shrugged. “Then you’ll be relegated to riding shotgun.”

This had largely been the case too. 

If they were taking one car somewhere, like this afternoon heading out to fix another part of the line, nobody threw a fit when Adam got in the front seat of the Evo. 

They were down two, with both Jiang and Swan out for the day. Since school had let out for the summer, Jiang had been taking four days out of the week to go up to his mentor’s tattoo shop, instead of just the two he could normally eek out with classes. And Swan had hitched a ride to the city for rehearsals, where a friend had begged him to perform in their production of _The Winter’s Tale_. As Shakespeare in the Park was not something a town like Henrietta went in for, it was an opportunity Swan was willing to inconvenience himself to take advantage of, because according to K, by the middle of July, nearly two months of not being on a stage were grating on Swan’s good humor. Adam hadn’t seen it, but then Swan was an actor by nature and Kavinsky knew him better; had probably seen it last year even. 

“K,” Proko said tone portentous, from the back seat.

Kavinsky hummed, idly taking the turn on to the expressway. 

“We have a tail,” Proko elaborated.

Skov turned in his seat completely to peer through the back glass. Adam glanced out the right side mirror, barely taking a moment to single out the metal-flake charcoal grey BMW two cars back. 

“Fucking Lynch,” Kavinsky said, through gritted teeth. “When’d you notice him?”

“Only after we picked up Ivy,” Proko said, eyes boring into Adam. 

“Pffff,” K exhaled and flicked off the signal once he had merged with the rest of the freeway. He didn’t even glance at Adam. “Well, he better stay the fuck out of our way.”

 

 

 

 

 

Adam had decided the best time for Noah to meet the rest of the pack would be the cookout they were planning on having next week. He figured it was the ideal scenario since all of K’s pack was going to be there and it would be more interesting then an afternoon with K’s consoles. But this proposition, like a good portion of their conversations, was better kept private. Adam waited till it was just him and Kavinsky in the kitchen.

“Would you mind if I brought someone else with us Tuesday?” Adam asked.

“Who?” K wondered, tone not necessarily closed off, but also not enthusiastic. 

He even hadn’t paused in the midst of his task at hand; measuring out shots of vodka into a blender already mostly filled with scoops of ice cream and milk. Adam had expressed surprise when Kavinsky had stressed the importance of this exactitude earlier. Experience had taught K if you just poured however much you wanted in, the shake would taste like shit. Adam could easily imagine an over-zealous pack taking their first sips of too vodkafied milkshakes. K had explained that sort of thing was fine for when you were already three sheets to the wind and pass giving a fuck, but if you were sipping or if it was the first drink of the night, like these milkshakes indeed were, then you had to try to do it properly. No one wanted to get off to a bad start.

“It’s not the pizza girl, is it?” K asked, putting the lid on the blender with a grimace.

“Her name's Blue,” Adam said, unimpressed. “And no, not her.”

K fixed him with a bored expression and hit the ‘puree’ button. A thunderous grinding filled the kitchen. Adam stared blithely back. 

“I don’t want a mystery guest, Ivy,” K said after a minute and a half of blending. He removed the lid and grabbed one of the iced tea spoons from the pile on the counter to fish at the consistency. “Spill.”

“Do you remember that smudgy kid who was with me and Gansey when you gave Ronan those forged bracelets?”

“Him?” K looked up surprised. “You know, I honestly didn't think you guys could see him.”

“Why?” Adam asked. While that would make sense why K had never acknowledged Noah in their presence, it followed a strange circular logic that actually didn’t make sense; because, and Adam said it, “He was _with_ us.”

“Yeah,” K conceded. “But I never saw any of you _talk_ to him. He’s been kicking around for a while. Back before his esteemed majesty Dick Gansey moved into that warehouse, I held a few rather bomb ass substance parties there. I’d see that kid drifting around, looking lost and confused. Walking _through_ people. But he would always like vanish before I could ask what was up with him.”

“He's dead.”

“That would explain it,” K said, pouring the shake evenly into five metal cups. “Did he ask to come?”

“Yeah, actually,” Adam said, surprised K hadn’t immediately assumed that Gansey had sent Noah to spy or some other paranoid bullshit. Kavinsky, apparently satisfied that the glasses were all equal, plunked a long spoon into each one.

“Well, I wouldn't mind meeting him,” K said as he turned to the freezer and pulled out Adam’s nonalcoholic milkshake. Once he had set it on the island, Adam made to take it and two of the others.

“Ahhhp,” K stopped him. “Not yet.” 

Adam leaned on the island and watched, amused, as K turned and started rummaging through the ‘spice cupboard.’ He drew back with a small canister, clearly pleased. He was secretively covering the label till he gave a few generous and dramatic shakes over Adam’s glass, before pushing it in amongst the others.

Adam stared at the sprinkles for several seconds before looking up at K with a raised eyebrow. “Do you think pink is my favorite color or something?”

“Hey, I only got pink sprinkles, man!” K said, a shit-eating grin splitting his face. “ _But_ if you wanted Skov or Proko to pound your ass, because you mixed up and gave them a _nonalcoholic_ shake-” 

“Right, because _I_ want one,” Adam broke in. 

“All I’m saying is it could have been your funeral,” K said, holding up his hands.

 

 

 

 

 

“Persephone! Coca Cola tee shirt is here!” Calla shouted up the stairs before turning back to address Adam and K again. “And who exactly are you supposed to be?”

“Calla, this is Kavinsky.”

“He’s the other one, right. And just as scaly as the Snake,” she frowned and eyed K nastily. “Don’t set anything on this property on fire.”

K blinked and then said, “Lady, I’m not that much of a pyro.”

“Famous last words,” Calla sniped.

“So I guess smoking’s out of the question?”

“Ha. If I'm not allowed to smoke in here, you certainly can’t,” Calla turned around and went into the kitchen.

They loitered in the hall a few minutes till Persephone began to descend the stairs, slowly. She was lost in thought and only looked up when she was almost down all of them. 

She stopped and blinked her large eyes at Kavinsky

“Persephone,” Adam said once she came down the rest of the stairs. “This is Joseph Kavinsky.”

“I wasn't expecting him till our seventh meeting,” Persephone said. Adam still wasn’t used to the way the women of Fox Way would just know things. He really didn’t understand how Blue could live with all the enigmas.

“You expected me?”

“Of course,” she said, then she made a hmm noise. “This is better. Though, you are very loud,”

K shifted, frowning. 

“I told him he would need to leave if you couldn’t have him here,” Adam said. 

“If Joseph wants to stay, he can,” Persephone said as she lead them back out onto the porch. “Having three of us will be better.”

After they were seated in a partially rusted old metal dining set, in the corner of the back yard opposite the beech tree. the glass tabletop was dusty with dirt and pollen and the seat cushions were faded with the weather. 

Persephone apparently didn’t need to ask why Kavinsky had decided to tag along or exactly how much he knew of Adam’s deal with Cabeswater. She cut straight to her point.

“Has Joseph seen you scry deeply into Cabeswater before?” 

“He’s seen me scry once,” Adam said. “Not deeply though.”

“Adam has spoke of the dangers of scrying?” she asked, turning to Kavinsky.

“He’s mentioned it.”

Persephone hummed in thought. “Joseph, Adam and I are going to scry together. He will go in deep and I will ground him. What I want you to do is watch Adam to see how he behaves when he is grounded.” 

K looked like he was ticking this request over; trying to figure out where Persephone was going with this. 

“It will prove informative, if you can come to Adam’s next session,” Persephone said, as if sensing his hesitation. “I think we might have a very interesting project to try out.”

“I could do that,” K said.

 

 

 

 

 

act ii: there isn’t a ceiling in our garden 

 

 

 

 

 

It was just after eight in the morning and the day was already bright and hot. There was a humming over the fields as K sped past with Adam, Proko, and Jiang. Ideal weather to spend on a lake. 

Skov and Swan had driven over in the evening before to get the boat out but the whole pack couldn’t all sleep on it. The boat was Skov's parents'. Given to his family by some of their American investors, but they kept it in Virginia so Skov and his friends could use it. Swan accompanied him because his parents had a time share in Tahoe and he knew how to work a boat.

They were supposed to meet on the east side, but when they got to the appointed dock, the gang plank was up and Skov’s boat had drifted a whole four feet.

“Skov!” K called, as Proko and Adam carried the cooler down the dock. “Yo, Skovron!”

With supreme laziness, Skov appeared only to lean on the railing of the boat. Definitely not moving to set out a gangplank for them or get the boat within hopping distance.

“Oh hey,” he said.

“You gonna let us on or what?”

“Ay, Swan,” Skov shouted. “Some losers want to get on my boat!”

Swan’s head poked out of the interior of the boat.

“You’re the one who invited us,” Jiang pointed out, clutching his monstrous sun hat.

“Did I?” 

“You better!” Proko shouted back. “We have the food and, more importantly, the drinks!”

“Well, let them on,” Swan determined. “They have the beer.”

Skov made an unconvinced noise. “I don’t know....”

“This is some kind of pay-back shit, isn’t it?” K asked, finally.

“Is it?” Skov asked innocently.

“You call someone a weak bitch one time and they never let you forget it,” K sighed exasperated. Adam turned abruptly. He hadn’t heard this, but from the looks on Jiang’s and Proko’s faces he wasn’t sure he wanted to. 

“You never apologized!”

“Why would I apologize?” K asked somewhat haughtily. “I’m not wrong.”

Skov made a hurt indignant noise. 

“Listen, in that instance, you were being a weak bitch,” K said. “So fucking what? Own it.”

“ _I am not_.”

“I think you’re being a weak bitch right now too,” Kavinsky continued. “Getting all butthurt about this again.”

Proko set down his end of the cooler as they kept going back and forth like that. Adam set his own end down too. Until behind Skov, Swan —who looked rather put off— went around to the boat’s motor controls and started the engine.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Skov demanded as Swan began maneuvering the boat close to the dock again. 

“I want a beer,” Swan shrugged. “I’m tired of waiting.”

 

 

 

 

 

Once they had loaded everything on the boat, Swan took them on a lazy turn along the edge of the lake. It wasn't large in terms of boats, but it was big enough to fit all six of them comfortably, even if they were all moving around on it. There was a grill towards the stern, which explained all the uncooked meat in the freeze chest Adam and Proko had lugged on. 

“Can you swim?” Skov demanded. The question was paired with a bulky orange life vest being thrown at his head.

“Yes,” Adam said, indignantly. But the truth was not well. 

At least, not anymore. The last time he had gone swimming was the final summer he had spent with his grandmother Merriell five years ago. Every June since he could remember she would drive down to Henrietta and take him back to her small frame house in the Appalachian Mountains. Those summers he spent with her were the best of his life and, now, he figured she might have known that; because she wouldn’t take him home till the week before school started in September. Merriell had taught him a lot of things. Such as swimming in the small lake near her house, but also how to make jam, how to play bridge and backgammon, or how to mend his own trousers. Important life lessons, if he was feeling melodramatic, but really she had been the only person in his corner for most of his childhood.

But those summers abruptly ended when she died sometime in the winter after he turned thirteen. Actually, no one had even known she was dead until Spring. Her death had shaken the foundations of Adam’s life. Now he knew, of course, that his thirteen year old self just didn’t have the tools too cope. It also didn’t help that there had been no closure. His parents hadn’t even taken him to her funeral — _too long a drive_ , his father had griped. Time passed as time does, but he still didn’t get over loosing her and his grief had only made things worse at home. It was only after one unspeakable event at school almost exactly three months after he received the news of her death that finally earned Adam a weekly standing appointment with the school counselor and the help he needed. 

To this day, he still missed her desperately. The shoebox of her letters to him —which his father had mocked him relentlessly for keeping— was one of the few possessions he salvaged from the trailer that night he left for good. But he hadn’t been swimming since that summer before she died, which was why he didn’t have a pair of swim trunks that fit. 

“I don’t care what any of you are doing,” Jiang stated standing up with a bottle that had big block letters stamped on the side that read ‘THIS IS TOTALLY LUBE.’ “You’re putting sunscreen on right now.”

The lube/sunscreen had to be one of K’s dream things, as Adam didn’t think corporations had gone quite so vulgar yet.

“Exposure to the sun does special damage to ink,” Jiang said noticing Adam’s attention. Swan had slowed and turned the boat off. “You should put some on too though.”

“Wouldn't have thought of that,” Adam said, but it made sense.

“Yeah, well,” Proko said. “Jiang knows things.”

“I should hope so,” K said, ducking inside the boat and disappearing from view. “As it’s his chosen profession.”

Looking around, Adam saw they all had tattoos. 

Jiang had more than Adam could count, including several big pieces. K’s infatuation with wife beaters made it impossible for Adam to have missed the one he had on the back his shoulder. A dragon curled around its prey; devouring the sun. Proko had a few small ones and Skov had a lot of small ones and a few medium pieces, including a smattering of dust —most likely stars— over a strange quadrant plane. But it was Swan’s bunch of pink rose buds going up the side of his rib cage, that kept catching Adam’s eye. It was a statement piece; impossible to miss. The buds were pale shades of pink against his dark skin and the lines were defined but delicate and crisp in a way that implied they were recent.

Adam caught himself staring and cut his eyes away, not wanting to be creepy. 

Swan called his name, and Adam turned back to find him holding out the sunscreen bottle, with the opposite side up provocatively proclaiming ‘TIME TO GREASE UP.’

But Adam stared passed Swan’s outstretched hand, unable to even take the bottle. 

“See something you like, Parrish?”

Adam did like the roses, but that wasn’t why he was staring. The buds that were on Swan’s side had _bloomed_. In the time it had taken him to look away and look back, Swan’s roses were —impossibly— full flowered and open.

And Swan, when Adam finally looked up at his face, was grinning like a killer. But it was Skov who was the first to say anything. “Ivy is jelly! He wants some dream ink!”

“What?” Adam asked. All of them were watching for his reaction to this. But the words ‘dream’ and ‘ink’ could only couple as well as two trains heading to completely different destinations in his mind. Kavinsky was able to dream tattoos now?

“Dream ink,” Jiang said, pulling up the side of his shirt revealing a demonically intricate octopus, the black ink stark against his skin.

Adam stepped over to the stern where Jiang was sitting to get a closer look. He had seen glimpses of Jiang’s octopus before, across one of Ag’s busy halls or out on the quad. He had been quite proud of his new ink when he got it and would flash it to anyone who asked for weeks after. 

“Touch it,” Jiang urged him. “Go on.”

Adam touched Jiang's cool skin, but nothing happened.

“I don't understand.”

“The ink will only move for someone with some in their skin,” Jiang explained. “Me, obviously, since its my skin, or someone else with one of K’s tattoos. Proko, come here.”

Proko stepped over and Adam stepped to the side. He pressed his forefinger right between the tattoo’s eyes and the octopus began fluttering its tentacles around, until a passing fish was snatched up and sucked into its maw.

“You want to see something _really_ cool?” Jiang asked, as if Adam weren’t already staring at him in astonishment.

A practiced double fingered circle motion, followed by a tap in the middle of his rib cage right between the octopus' eyes, set the dream off from its apparently not so permanent position. Quite literally swimming above and behind Jiang’s other tattoos.

Adam was agog.

“You're so tempted,” Jiang crowed.

“I don’t know about that,” Adam hedged. 

“Please, Parrish, I know that look,” Jiang said. “I see that envy on the face of half the buddies who come with their friend for moral support. And whenever someone’s waiting to get into my mentor’s chair.”

“Can you feel it move around?” Adam asked. He wasn’t eager to linger on the topic of him getting a tattoo.

Jiang shook his head. “It doesn't feel any different from my others.”

Adam looked at the others. Some of Jiang’s ink reminded him of the duality of Ronan’s tattoo, particularly the double eyed pack of snarling dogs on Jiang’s breastbone. “Do you know who did Ronan's back?”

A sly smile drew across Jiang's mouth, “Of course. I introduced him to the artist.”

As it turned out, Jiang's mentor had done Ronan's tattoo. The artist was a DC legend, who moved South for some much needed peace and quiet. But her shop was still booked half a year in advance and she had artists lining up around the block just for a chance to learn from her.

“How’d you get her to take you on then?” Adam asked.

Skov burst into laughter. 

“Thank you, Parrish,” Jiang said with a tart wryness. “For your faith in my talent.”

“I’ve never seen your work!” Adam protested. 

“Yeah, you have. Skov!” Jiang called. “Hey, show Ivy that piece I gave you last fall.”

Skov came over and pointed to an archaic looking solar system in planetary alignment going up the inside of his forearm. Adam really didn’t know anything about tattoos, but he had to agree that Jiang had a natural aptitude.

“Nice,”Adam said to both of them. 

“It is pretty wicked, huh?”

Adam nodded, but before he could say anything else, Skov had both of his hands on Adam’s arms and was pushing him quite forcefully off the stern of the boat. 

For ten seconds Adam was in a tumble of green lake water, before he got his bearings enough to kick to the surface. Adam spit out the water at Skov’s bare feet.

“Asshole!” Adam shouted at him as he bobbed and then splashed a wave of water that barely went over the lib of the boat. “I have my phone in my pocket!”

“You can cry, but it's water proof!” Proko giggled next to Skov.

Swan pushed them both out of the way and reached a hand down to help Adam back on board. Then he offered to teach Adam how to water ski, since he was already wet. 

They spent the rest of the morning taking turns on the water ski, before breaking for lunch. K had finally came up from below deck, for a few turns with the skis himself, but not before Adam wondered if boats made him sick. K was apparently feeling fine enough to grill some hot dogs though. The chips and dips were already out on deck along with a case of cerveza in suspiciously plain aluminum cans and a six pack of Coke for Adam.

Adam had brought along the library’s copy of _The Stranger_ , because he hadn’t been entirely sure what people did on boats all day if they weren't fishing. For the rest of the afternoon, they lazed about. He and Jiang had taken the bow. Adam reading and Jiang was drawing, with his obnoxiously huge floppy sun hat pulled low and huge Jackie O style shades firmly in place. 

He wasn’t wearing a shirt though and Adam found himself looking at the ink on his ribs, before realizing what he was doing and determinedly refocusing on his reading. 

Adam had made it another good ten pages before his eyes wandered to Jiang’s octopus again. If the way the octopus moved was astounding, the tattoo itself was impeccable. It was on par with the rest of Jiang’s no doubt professional tattoos. With the exception of Ronan's, Adam hadn't seen such quality work up close before.

“You are _so_ interested,” Jiang grinned, pulling Adam out of his reverie. “And not just in K’s dreams.”

Jiang capped his pen and held out his notebook to Adam.

“If you look through this,” Jiang said, not relinquishing his grip on the sketchbook when Adam tried to take it. “You have to promise you are going to tell me which ones you like. What you might be interested in getting yourself.”

Adam had never considered getting a tattoo before. There wasn’t a lot of work he’d seen that he’d been interested in having permanently on his body and what he did like was well beyond his price range.

The idea of compromising on art because of money seemed pointless. Not that the entire thing wasn’t pointless to consider anyway, as he had no money to spend on art to speak of.

“I’ll tell you what I like,” Adam said, taking the book and opening it. “But I’m not getting one.”

“What?” Jiang demanded rather offended.

“We’re on a boat,” Adam pointed out. He didn’t know much about the art, but he did know you needed steady hands. 

“Of course, not today,” Jiang agreed, a mournful note in his voice. “I didn’t bring my gun.”

Adam laughed. “Have _you_ even done one on a boat before?”

“No,” Jiang said a touch wistful.

Adam flipped through the notebook. He’d had some idea that Jiang was a skilled artist, but the notebook was better than he was expecting. “They turn out differently when you translate them to skin, don’t they?” 

“Naturally,” Jiang said taking out his phone. “But probably not as much as you’d think. I’ll pull up my work Insta and you can see some side by side comparisons.”

Jiang pulled up his more recent pieces and then flipped to the corresponding sketch. But he show and tell was interrupted after the sixth comparison by a loud, fervent “Shit!” from the stern. Both he and Jiang turned to each other, before getting up to see what was going on. The others were standing around the grill looking varying degrees of annoyed.

“What happened? Jiang demanded.

“Ran out of propane,” K said.

“You got any extras stashed below?” Swan asked.

“No,” Skov said and turned back to look intently at K.

“No,” K said, irritated to this unspoken demand.

“Maybe one of us could drive into town and get some,” Proko suggested.

“That would take too long,” Skov dismissed, he turned back to Kavinsky. “Why won’t you dream some?”

“Just get us a table at the club,” K said.

“What? No!”

“My treat.”

“Ignoring the fact that we have food right there,” Skov pointed out. “They’re not gonna let us in the dinning room with tank tops and flip flops.” 

“Well, call ahead,” K said. “Get us a table out on the deck.”

“Just dream us up a thing of propane,” Skov said. “ _It’s gas_. What’s that gonna hurt? I can pull up the chemical compound right now.” 

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” K said, in the tone of someone who has been over this before, “I am not putting unnecessary drains on the line.”

“Me eating is a fucking necessity,” Skov said. 

“Skov,” Proko said, gripping his arm. Skov turned to him expression drawn. 

“What? We have all this fish already. If he’s so worried about conservation, cooking this up would be more in line with not wasting shit!”

“Get fish at the club if you’re so gung-ho on it,” Swan said.

“That’s not the point and you know it,” Skov ground out.

“Make the call,” K told him, before ducking into the boat’s interior. 

“What the fuck!” Skov shouted after him. “Do none of you think that this sudden abstention isn’t a bit weird?”

“I’m hungry,” Jiang said.

“So am I, but really?” Skov gestured to the interior of the boat, with an open-hand shaking motion.

“Order the most expensive thing on the menu,” Swan shrugged.

“I don’t want a fucking two day old crab!”

“Whatever,” Jiang said. “Could you please call them and drive us over there? I’m hungry.”

With tight jawed irritability, Skov pulled out his phone. He paced as the phone rang.

“Yes, hello. My membership number is 1375,” Skov said to the hostess on the other end. “I would like to make a reservation for six tonight.” Then, “Yes. In about twenty minutes, if possible. Outside, please...”

 

 

 

 

 

The clubhouse was on the other side of the lake —a choppy ten minute boat ride, which really didn’t do anything for Adam’s appetite. When they disembarked, Skov took a ticket from the valet, who drove their boat away after they were all out of it. The restaurant was on top of a small knoll, but Skov didn’t lead them in through the front, but around the back to a multi-tiered deck over looking the lake. 

Whoever Skov had called, had set up a round table for them on their own private tier. The string of bare bulb lights hung low over the table and Adam hesitantly opened up the menu.

Adam was going to buy his own meal, even if K had offered to treat them all to dinner. The fact that they were here at all was Adam’s fault. A bowl of the chef’s signature chowder was eight-fifty. A mug of it was five dollars. He could feign fullness from the hot dogs at lunch and if they pressed he could get a side salad. That would four dollars. But that made for a lousy contribution for tip. Adam glanced over the rest of the menu... he _could_ get the BLT for six dollars seventy-five cents off the lunch menu. Adam only had a ten in his wallet. It might be a bit wet, but it would be enough to pay for the sandwich and a reasonable tip.

“Well,” Kavinsky leaned over to Adam, whispering as the others started ordering, “That was awkward.”

“Yeah,” Adam agreed. He wasn’t going to thank K for sticking to their deal, though he could see how easy it would have been to fold.

“It wouldn’t have really been a tax on the line,” K said, watching Adam out of the corner of his eye, but still holding the menu up. This seemed to be some kind of test.

“It’s not Sunday,” Adam pointed out, as Skov definitely did _not_ order the crab. 

“No, it’s not,” K said and decisively turned to the waiter, who had made his way to their side of the table. 

Kavinsky ordered some sort of cajun chicken linguini dish and Adam had opened his mouth to tell the waiter he wanted the BLT, but K just kept talking.

“And this guy right here,” K said, inexplicably pointing to Adam. “Will have your t-bone steak. Medium rare. With sides of curly fries and green beans.”

The waiter dutifully took down the order and Adam met Kavinsky’s eyes. K’s expression was completely placid. This was clearly some sort of recompense for all the hassle Skov gave him earlier, and Adam would just _let_ him buy him a $27.99 _steak._

“Just the one tab tonight, please,” K said, handing his menu to the waiter, still looking at Adam with that fixed expression. Adam knew what he meant. This was their deal; K had kept the line free today for Adam but this was the other half.

“And a Coke too, please,” Adam said snapping his menu closed and handing it to the waiter.

 

 

 

 

 

“Let me guess. You’re out here for fresh air?” Kavinsky asked unable to hold back a laugh. Adam returned K’s smile with one of his own around a cigarette.

Meeting Kavinsky out in the hallway for one on one conversations was becoming a ritual. Adam strangely found himself looking forward to these little exchanges; parrying with K in the off white light of the hallway where they would invariably meet. 

“My mom really doesn't want us to smoke in the house.”

“You’re only telling me now?” Adam asked incredulous. How many nights had he seen K light up across from him before Adam joined? How many nights had they smoked two or three cigarettes while they talked?

“Like you smoking,” K admitted with a shrug. “She never comes down here anyway.”

Adam shook his head, scoffing, “And misery loves company.”

“You wound me,” K groused. “My drugs _do not_ inspire misery.”

 _Anything but_ , Adam thought and held up his hands in retraction. “So your mom doesn’t smoke?” Adam asked. He wanted a clearer picture of K’s mom. For some reason, he had always thought she would. 

“She used to,” K said, pulling out his own pack, the one with the Amidala Badtz-Maru. “Back in София. I’m pretty sure it was more of a social thing though. Says she’s never liked the smell.” 

“That's too bad,” Adam said, blowing out a long plume of smoke towards the white ceiling just to see K's reaction.

“It really is,” Kavinsky agreed, lighting up a cigarette of his own. 

“Have you ever tried making an anti-smokebomb?” Adam wondered aloud.

Kavinsky made a considering face, “I could, but then I would need clearance for such an ‘unnecessary dream object.’ Do you really care about my mother’s wishes so much?”

“I still haven’t met her,” Adam pointed out. It was weird. There was hardly any indication she lived in the mansion; other than the infrequent noises from her part of the house when all the other boys had been accounted for, how her red Mercedes would randomly be in the drive rather than the garage, or the bottles of red wine Adam saw cycling through the fridge, even though he never saw anyone drink them. 

K cut his eyes away to the glowing orange tip of his cigarette.

“You’ll meet her,” he said finally, with a certainty that Adam wouldn’t have felt if he lived with such a ghost. “She hasn’t been well.”

“Oh,” Adam said. He wanted to press, make K tell him what was really going on, but he forced himself to take another drag on his cigarette. 

It wasn’t his business.

 

 

 

 

 

“I’ve been dead seven years,” Noah said customarily, once Adam had made introductions. Though he typically said this right off the bat, most people laughed it off with how utterly deadpan he delivered the statement. This time, however, Skov’s eyes had snapped right back to Noah.

“Really,” he demanded, interested despite himself. Adam would have thought that K would have told them he was bringing a ghost, but apparently not.

“Yeah,” Noah said, returning his stare. “A friend murdered me with my own skateboard.”

“Man, that totally blows,” Skov said this monstrous understatement with feeling and complete sincerity. “You still skate?”

“When I can borrow a board,” Noah said. 

“I have a board you can borrow!” Skov said. “We should totally go sometime!”

After that everything was easy. Adam and K carried the BBQ up the path to their campsite and the others followed behind, having divvied up the rest of what they needed to take from the cars.

“Look!” Adam heard Noah say somewhere back down along the path to the parking lot. He halted, looking back concerned, till Noah continued, “A caterpillar!”

“Pick it up!” Skov urged sounding just as excited. “Pick it up!”

“It’s so fuzzy!” Noah said in unabashed wonder.

Adam turned back to Kavinsky, who had stopped walking too. His eyes held their usual amusement, but his smile was tiny and shared. 

“What are you doing?” Jiang demanded from further down. “Get away!”

K burst out laughing as Jiang came bounding up the path, Skov and Noah hot on his heels. Skov had his hand outstretched with the black caterpillar in the palm.

Noah just started showing up from then on. He was there on the afternoons they went to fix the line for Cabeswater. On their movie nights in K’s basement. He would be out on the street in front of K’s house with Skov practicing something called a nollie kickflip when Adam came by after work.

Noah passed on the pack’s trips to the lake and days spent on the boat, as it was too far from the ley line for him to comfortably manifest. This might have been why they started going for cookouts more. He would come with them on their late night drives blasting down the highway, when they were all piled in two cars looking for the perfect snack. Or on the impromptu races, with Noah and Adam just along for the ride. Noah in Skov’s shiny plain steel RX-7 and Adam with K. 

All those nights when K drove aimless through the Virginian countryside, with the windows rolled down and the warm summer air whipping through the cab, made it clear K loved driving just to drive. Adam asked Kavinsky what kind of road trips he had been on. If he’d driven anywhere cool. Adam hadn’t really been anywhere. His middle school had driven up to DC for a trip to the Smithsonian, but that was a notable exception. 

K told him about the time they had taken two cars down to the Florida Keys last summer because Morris’ mom’s brother had a summer home down there and the drives he would sometimes take with Proko up to Atlantic City. But what Kavinsky really wanted to do was drive out to Vegas when school was over. Swan was always on them to come out and see his old stomping ground in LA, but they’d never followed through on any plans they made. 

“But if we’ve already driven out to Vegas,” K said. “Might as well drive a few more hours to see the Pacific! I mean a literal honest to god, cross-country road trip would be just the thing to celebrate being done with all Ag’s shit.” 

Adam wanted that. The freedom to just pick up for a couple weeks to drive across the country for no reason other than he hadn’t seen it before and he wanted to.

 

 

 

 

 

“Wanna see a total trip?” Skov asked Jiang. It was the two of them and Proko packed in the back seat of the Evo. Skov patted Jiang’s knee across Proko and all but got up on his knees to see out the back window, Jiang turned to follow his finger when Skov pointed out a specific car not far back.

“Is that Lynch?” Jiang asked. 

“Who else around here has a fucking E30?” K asked derisive. “Old man's car. He's been following us since we picked up Parrish,” K said low and even as he took a corner a bit too fast. The boys in the back all slid to the left. 

“Why?” Jiang asked in a tone that implied he was offended for having to.

“Poison Ivy, care to hazard a guess?”

Adam hadn’t spoken to Ronan since he told him not to fix what had been said between him and Gansey about the dream phone. Adam wondered where Gansey was since Ronan had apparently gotten over his injured pride enough to tail them un-surreptitiously nearly every time they got in a car.

“Earth to Ivy,” Proko poked him.

“I don’t have a clue,” Adam said. 

“Who cares?” Skov demanded. “Pull over so we can give him the fight he’s asking for.”

“Five against one hardly seems fair. Or you want him to yourself,” Proko asked Skov.

“If you’re too chicken, I guess I’ll have to.”

“Now that _would_ be unfair,” Adam threw in.

This was met with four scoffs, three in disparagement and one in indignation. 

“Have you seen him fight?” Proko asked.

Adam had not, but he’d seen Ronan.

“With Skov, it would be an even match,” K said, low, his eyes steadfastly on the road ahead. “I mean, Lynch isn’t, like, infallible. He’s good. Not to be underestimated, but Skov, you’re vicious, aren’t you babe?” K asked catching Skov’s eyes in the rearview.

“Damn fuckin’ straight,” Skov said. “So pull over and let me prove it.”

Kavinsky actually looked like he was considering it.

“I thought we were getting fries?” Adam asked. This wouldn’t deter Skov, but Adam would hate to be anything that got between Jiang and his fast food. 

K’s glance slid to him. Smirk saying he knew exactly what Adam was doing. 

“Fries can wait,” Skov dismissed. 

“Fries cannot wait,” Jiang shot back, offended.

“K-” Skov pleaded.

“They’re right,” K said. “We _are_ getting fries.”

“Fuck this,” Skov muttered. Proko patted his shoulder consolingly. “You can’t tell me Lynch doesn’t have it coming.”

 

 

 

 

 

Adam had picked up an extra shift at the warehouse on Sunday, so he wouldn't have to choose between pointlessly spending the day with Kavinsky and Co. or with Gansey and Ronan, which he was hesitant to admit to himself was even less appealing.

In light of the increasing awkwardness of Ronan being right there every time he stepped out of a building but never closing the distance to tell him _why_ , Adam had resolved to do two things Sunday. Before his shift, he would go over to Monmouth with his number on a sticky note and if Ronan was there alone—unlikely—Adam would ask what was up with the creepy stalker act he was pulling. 

Killing the shitbox’s engine, it seemed luck was on Adam’s side, as he noted that the Monmouth lot was absent an orange Camaro. Adam took the stairs two at a time and knocked sharply on the door, wondering if Ronan would even bother answering.

Ronan opened it a few seconds later. He looked good. Better then Adam had seen him last, though there was still traces of poor sleep and Adam caught a whiff of stale beer off his ratty black tank.

“Hey, asshole,” Ronan greeted.

“Hey, man.”

“Do you want to—” Ronan trailed off opening the door wider and jerking his chin toward the room beyond.

“I can't stay.”

“Gansey’s not here,” Ronan said.

“I have work.’

“Right.”

“Just thought I’d give y’all my number,” Adam said, awkwardly holding the sticky note with the dream phone number written on it and knowing how antithetical this was to the nature of cell phones. 

Ronan took it and the silence dragged between them. Adam was just about to pose the perfect question that would get Ronan to tell him why he’d started tailing them without having to dodge ten non-answers first, when Ronan blurted out, “Do you want to meet my mom?” 

“Your mom?” Adam repeated, blindsided. He didn't believe in miracles. Aurora just waking from her scientifically unexplained coma seemed beyond unlikely, especially after two years.

“We took her to Cabeswater and she woke up,” Ronan said, all but bouncing on his heels. “I would have wanted you to be there too, but Gansey said—”

“Wait,” Adam interrupted, totally confused. “What happened?”

Ronan explained what had led him to make the connection with Cabeswater and waking dreams. How she would need to stay out there to remain conscious and how now he could see her anytime. It was wonderful news, but with every word a dull ache in Adam’s gut grew. 

“We could go now,” Ronan said.

“Work,” Adam said again, deliberately ignoring the implications of Ronan’s actions and their inherent hypocrisy. 

“Next Sunday then?” Ronan asked. He was so hopeful, more buoyant than Adam had seen him in weeks. Adam could not engage with this knowledge head on without risking another pointless argument.

“We'll see,” Adam said faintly, not asking whether Gansey would be there and not missing how Ronan hadn't said either. Feigning lateness, Adam fled to his car as fast as politeness would allow, all the while feeling like he might be choking. 

Adam reflexively swallowed, but it did nothing to clear the pressure in his chest. 

His breath was shallow. He couldn't escape it. 

He was a dime dropped into liquid asphalt. It was all around him. _Engulfing_ him, hot and black. The rage would drown him where he sat. 

It made Adam a terrible person. Ronan had just gotten back one of his parents after both of them were taken from him and all Adam could feel was an overwhelming anger. 

But it was _Ronan_ who said this wasn't a solution. He was the one who didn't think Adam could make this deal with K work. It was Ronan who didn’t think Kavinsky was trustworthy. So how could he bet his mother’s life on that deal now? Cabeswater had only been back full time for two weeks and somehow that was enough for Ronan to not only take his mother out there, but leave her there. When, from how he had been talking of Kavinsky, it could still all just disappear again the moment K got bored? 

Adam sat miserably still across from the beast that was his anger. Unwilling to let himself move, half afraid he would break the window or break his hand punching the window. For the first time since he got his car, Adam wished he was on his bicycle. 

_Stupid._ The shitbox was better than his bike in every way except one. Biking had been a handy way to vent his anger after he gave up running. Cycling away from his problems never wholly abated the feeling, but there was something satisfying about the exertion of powering his own movement —a _nonviolent_ channel of movement. Throughout middle school, and on the playground when he was even younger, Adam had always gone in for races. He’d liked running because of where it could get him—away from his father or bullies— and the way it helped to burn off some of his anger. Not all of it—not even most of it—but enough for him to think rationally again.

Adam took Weights as one of his two extracurricular electives. Elective was perhaps too generous a word choice. Boys at Ag were required to partake in at least one extracurricular club or society and at least one sport. Adam didn’t really think Weights was a sport, but it counted nevertheless. He preferred running the two hundred meter.

Briefly Adam had considered pursuing track while at Aglionby. He was fast enough the coach would have taken him. But not fast enough to try for a scholarship and certainly not fast enough to spend two hours every afternoon four days a week at practice. He possibly could have finagled it down to just three, but the real problem was the meets. The events at Ag’s track and field meets had no set schedule. Essentially, Adam would be obligated to waste the whole day for an hour of competition. There was no way he could justify it.

So he took Weights, the least expensive and least time consuming of activities which filled the phys ed requirement at Aglionby. But now holding himself immobilized in his car, Adam had an unpleasant sense of foreboding. Without the outlet of his daily commute or designated time for running, Adam would have to find a new way to work out all this impossible rage. 

This realization only seemed to magnify his earlier anger. Ronan was always doing something dumb and rash, but Adam should have seen _this_ coming. The convenience of the car and his perpetual exhaustion made it a guarantee he would never get back on the bicycle if he could help it. 

Adam remained frozen; trapped claustrophobic with his anger, until he felt the brush of leaves against his mind. He sighed.

He had to go to work. He had a job to do. 

Adam gave his anger to Cabeswater.

 

 

 

 

 

Adam knocked on the front door of Fox Way a few minutes before their agreed upon session time. K was still in the Evo idling at the curb of the walk. 

Persephone had encouraged K to join them, but had then told them that if he was coming with them from now on they would have to meet somewhere else. The other psychics at Fox Way couldn't have both of them there at once and still tap into the line easily. It hadn't been a problem last session as most of them had gone on an herb run. But it could have cost someone a session if that hadn’t been the case. They were going to Cabeswater this time and K offered to drive.

Orla opened the door.

“Oh, uh hello,” Adam said. “I'm looking for Persephone.”

“Shame,” she said, with a look of appreciation. Adam looked past her into the hall trying to see if Persephone was on her way. The room beyond was empty. Adam shoved his hands in his pockets and, not looking at Orla, he turned to see how Kavinsky was occupying himself. He had gotten out of the mitsu and was leaning, arms stretched on the top, shades slipping down his face, eyeing the psychics’ residence; looking for all the world like a male model on the back cover of some magazine. The perfect black and white spread for Mont Blanc watches or Calvin Klein.

Adam turned back to Orla and saw she had followed his gaze out to Kavinsky.

“You gonna introduce me, Coca-Cola?” 

“No,” Adam said. “Could you please see if Persephone is ready?”

“See yourself,” Orla huffed, flouncing off. “Think she was in the kitchen.”

Adam followed her inside and, sure enough, Persephone was at the kitchen table. He waited for her to finish the row of knitting she was on. Adam was telling Persephone that K was going to drive them to Cabeswater as they stepped onto the porch but looking out to the car he stopped short.

Blue had parked her bike in front of the Evo. She and Kavinsky were speaking animatedly in low voices. He was too far away to decipher and Adam hurried dow the walk, Persephone close behind. He could see out of the corner of his eye she was troubled. 

Blue, with her hands placed righteously on her hips—she looked a bit terrifying to Adam—had said something that K evidently seemed to have found quite amusing. His untroubled, blasé reply only served to enrage Blue more. She bit out something which actually caused Kavinsky to snort. 

They had arrived at the end of the walk in time to hear K say, “Or what, pint-size?”

“I’ll make you regret it, you sadistic, manipulative snake.”

“Blue!” Persephone admonished. “You shouldn't say things like that to Adam's friends.”

“They aren't friends though,” Blue pointed out.

“What are you talking about?” K asked, tone cloying, as he threw an arm around Adam’s shoulders. “We’re thick as thieves.”

Blue’s expression soured further.

Adam turned to Persephone who was looking at Blue with quiet disappointment. He had hoped that Blue and Gansey would behave better than Ronan, it seemed that all of his friends were incapable of talking to Kavinsky for any length of time without insults or threats of violence. 

“K, get in the car,” Adam said tiredly, taking back his shoulders, before turning to Persephone. “Let me get the door for you, ma’am.”

 

 

 

 

 

Adam knew something was off with Cabeswater the moment they stepped into it. 

Usually, it accommodated itself to whatever one of them asked of it. But today, the forest was cold. There was a general feeling of disquiet, unnatural for a summer day.

Adam prodded at the forest.

Cabeswater took leave to riffle through Adam’s memories to show him exactly what it was feeling. Times when Adam’s father hadn't taken a swing at him, hadn't said a word to him, hadn't even looked at him, but when Adam knew that he _could_. An alligator submerged but for its eyes, Adam had once seen in a video during a biology course. Gansey swallowing his words back when he and Adam were on the verge of another fight, K holding the green pill aloft as Cabeswater’s vines warped around him, eyes determined. The baby fire dragon. All the potential of a coil waiting to be sprung.

Cabeswater was unnerved by Kavinsky’s presence. Adam understood Cabeswater’s apprehension, but this was where they were now and a significant portion of the blame for that laid at the forest’s feet. Adam threw his memory of Cabeswater urging him to take the deal back at it, but this did not soothe the forest. Relenting Adam impressed his memories of all the times in the past couple weeks when K was reasonable, when he was oddly _tractable._

Slowly, reluctantly, Adam was able to coax a overcast summer’s day from Cabeswater.

 

 

 

 

 

“Adam has expressed worry that he might loose his body when he scries,” Persephone started out, once they had sat down at a scenic picnic bench. “This is a very real danger. If one is not properly grounded, it is quite an easy thing to be persuaded from one’s body. When you get too far out, you can loose yourself. Do you see what I mean?”

“Not really?” K admitted. 

Persephone cocked her head to the side in thought.

“He’s mentioned this as a problem,” K elaborated. “But I don't understand how you can just...not be able to get back?”

Persephone hummed. Adam wrecked his brain for a metaphor K would understand.

“Think of it like swimming in the ocean, ok?” Adam finally said. “You go out as far as you feel comfortable, you turn on your back and float, but all the while the tide is carrying you. You need to be aware of it. Now think of swimming along and being caught in a riptide. No matter how much you struggle you'll never get back.”

“Because the tide is stronger,” K added.

“Except when you're scrying like this and you go too far away from your body, it will start to shut down,” Persephone interjected. “There is a limited amount of time for the consciousness to return to the body before it will cease to function. This opening is much less if you don't have someone to ground you.”

“So he could _die_ if he doesn't have someone grounding him?”

“If he goes in too deep,” Persephone hummed an affirmative note. “But I knew a psychic who lost her body even with someone there to ground her. It’s a danger every time.”

Kavinsky’s face morphed in understanding.

Persephone asked Kavinsky to describe his process of dreaming. K explained what he could do and what he normally did. 

“Joseph,” Persephone said when he was done. “I would like to teach you how to ground Adam while he scries. I believe you are uniquely suited for this task.”

Adam wasn't sure how he felt putting his life in K's hands like that. He felt K glance at him, but Adam was too busy staring at Persephone.

“It will be a bit different from your dreams. Instead of pulling a copy out, you'll be calling the true Adam to you and then herding him back to his body,” she explained.

“He won't be,” K paused. “ _Corporeal_ when I find him?”

“No. Not really,” Persephone said. “When you scry, you cast your mind out in into what you're trying to tap into. In Adam’s case it is Cabeswater. When he does this his mind is connected back to his body by something very much like a thin string. Sometimes depending on how far in he goes that's barely enough to get back.”

“Leading his soul back to his body,” K supplied, brow furrowed.

“If you like,” Persephone agreed. “You have to ensure that you find _Adam_ and not just conjure a copy. Remember you're not pulling him out, but calling him back. You are his guide. If he can get back to you, he can get to his own body.”

Kavinsky seemed to be conceptualizing this.

“He might have a problem doing that,” Adam said. “The forest doesn’t like him.”

“I could have told you that.”

“Yes, but the nightmares-”

K turned to Persephone.

“Hmmm... the bad blood between the two of you might not ever be resolved,” Persephone said faintly. “I can’t see that clearly, but Cabeswater _can_ be made to see the benefit of working _with_ Joseph to help its magician. You and Adam will just have to make sure it knows that the ley line won’t get fixed if Adam looses his body. Remind it that is what Joseph is there for. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

Adam glanced at Kavinsky then. His mouth was an uncertain line, watching Persephone.

“Until we can get the forest to understand how, like, literally life and death this is...” K said. “I don’t feel comfortable doing it, Seph.”

“Well, you won’t be doing anything yet,” Persephone said. “This is going to take practice. Let’s try an exercise.”

 

 

 

 

 

Swan had picked him up at St. Agnes and together they stopped by the grocery store for chips and dips. After they shambled into the kitchen, laden with plastic shopping bags and 24 packs of canned soda, Swan began to root through the bags they’d set on the island to pull out the cold items for the fridge. 

Adam’s eyes were drawn to the half opened Amazon Prime box on the kitchen counter that hadn’t been there yesterday. He glanced inside and found a couple books. The titles weren’t from Ag’s summer reading list, but were called _The Power of Positive Thinking, A New Earth - Awakening Your Life’s Purpose,_ and _Eat That Frog_.

Even though K allegedly lived with his mom, Adam had not seen her once in the first month of coming over. All his free time with Kavinsky and Co. meant a healthy chunk was just chilling at K’s mansion. But despite being inhabited, the house had an eery stillness to it. There would be afternoons he’d come over and step into the foyer and swear there wasn’t anyone else in the building, despite having received a text that the others were in the basement.

He’d find traces of someone else living there though. Foods in the fridge that were typically unappetizing to teen boys. A fuchsia handbag on the hall table with a pair of kicked off size seven heels in a matching shade underneath. Of course, there was the red convertible. And the way K would sometimes get a text and wordlessly go upstairs for a half an hour or more.

Most inexplicable, however, were the books. They had titles like _The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, Superbrain, The Seven Keys to Success, The Power of Now, The Success Principles,_ and _Feeling Good - New Mood Therapy_. There were stacks of them everywhere. None of them had a coating of dust, but that didn’t mean anyone ever picked them up to read. The Kavinskys had a maid who came once a week and the books never moved so much as a centimeter. They were something of an enigma.

Adam pulled the book about eating frogs out of the box. The cover had an attentive frog perched on top of a stopwatch and promised to reveal ‘21 great ways to stop procrastinating and get more done in less time!’ Adam couldn’t see K reading self help books.

“Who’s are these?”

Swan glanced at the box and then surprised Adam somewhat by saying, “That would be K’s mom.” 

“Really?” Adam asked, though he didn’t know who’s else he could have thought they were moments before. 

“Yeah, she’s a bit of a self help freak,” Swan said in confidence, then seemed to reconsider. “Sometimes.”

“I have yet to be convinced she actually exists,” Adam said, putting the book back.

“Oh, she exists,” Swan smiled, something of a bitter twist to it. 

“What’s wrong with her?”

“I actually dunno,” Swan admitted. “But my guess? Bipolar.”

“Why do you say that?”

Swan gave a rueful shrug, picking at the packing paper. “When the psych 2 class K was in last year was going over ‘abnormal psychology,’ that’s all he was reading about.”

“Huh.”

“Plus, from what I’ve seen,” Swan continued. “Her symptoms match pretty good. She clearly tends toward the depression side. Although,” here he held up two fingers pointed towards the entry before flicking them upwards. “Three months ago she renovated the entire entryway in less than two weeks. Had plans drawn up, brought a contractor in, got new paint, new drapes, new lighting, new art, even knocked down a wall and cut a hole in the ceiling. She also had the contractor draw up plans for renovating the rest of the house too, but...” he trailed off with an ironic tilt of his head.

It was hard not to immediately notice the stark difference between the sumptuous and inviting entryway and the rest of the house’s plain cookie-cutter features and kilim beige walls. 

“Aren’t there meds for that?”

“Yeah, and I’m led to believe she has some.”

“Oh,” Adam said. “Has he tried to dream her some that work?”

Swan was silent for several seconds. His face was tense with the deliberation of what about this he should even tell Adam. 

“I don’t _think_ it’s purely a question of the meds working,” Swan finally allowed. “Part of it is getting her to take them...”

Adam frowned. “Maybe she should be in a hospital.”

“Right,” Swan huffed a laugh. “And where would that leave K? Back in Jersey with his dad? Pretty sure we can agree that’s not a good idea.”

“He could stay in the dorms,” Adam said.

“But she doesn’t want to go back and forced institutionalization isn’t as simple as you might think,” Swan explained with a shake of his head. “As for what K has dreamt for her, I don’t know. He’s never been particularly open about his mom and it’s not exactly something you just ask about, is it?”

“No,” Adam agreed. Here he was asking Swan when he really should have just gone and talked with K himself. “I guess not.”

 

 

 

 

 

“Alright,” K snapped. His eyes still straying more to the rearview mirror than watching the road in front of them. He’d been doing that for most of the drive back into town from the trailer factory. “This is annoying.”

Kavinsky took a sharp turn into the first gas station, a franchise off the interstate, without signaling. K pulled up to a fluorescent lit pump and killed the engine. 

“I thought you didn’t need gas,” Adam said into the startling silence.

“I don’t,” K said, with a smirk that didn’t reach his eyes as he watched the E30 pull into the lot of Henrietta’s only Indian place, just one store down. “I’m getting some red vines and what do you want, peanut butter cup?”

“I’m fine.”

“Bullshit, I’m getting you some Reese’s,” he muttered.

“K-”

“ _And you_ \- You are gonna go and tell _him_ to ‘fuck off,’” K said, catching Adam’s eyes over his shades, and gesturing towards Ronan’s car. “I’m gonna browse a bit. Make sure we don’t need anything else. He _better_ be gone by the time I come back.” 

“I can’t control him.”

K made a ‘yeah, well’ face and said, “I’m sure you can make him see why he doesn’t need to worry about me...I don’t know—taking advantage of you in the back seat or some shit.”

“I doubt that’s what he’s thinking,” Adam said wry.

“I wouldn’t be so sure. I mean, have you met him?” K asked. “You’re aware how he watches you, right?”

Adam had caught Ronan at it more than once over the summer, but the looks had been there before that, ever since his deal with Cabeswater. It wasn’t the same way Ronan had watched Kavinsky, not entirely; this was a different kind of want. Or so Adam had thought. It could have just been Ronan trying to figure out _what_ Adam was now. 

“Oh ho! Did you not know?” K asked when Adam didn’t immediately respond. His eyes were huge and delighted as he continued to peer over his shades at Adam.

“‘Course I knew,” Adam said, blinking back to the present and turning to look at K steadily. “I still don’t think that’s it.”

“Well, it’s something. He wouldn’t be wasting his time, otherwise. He likes you and there’s no denying he was at least attracted to me. It makes sense!”

“Seriously, K?”

“What?” he shrugged. “It’d be a good show. I’d watch.”

“I’m _not_ making porn with you.”

“Ugh c’mon,” Kavinsky cajoled. “It’d be awesome.”

Adam refrained from commenting on _that_ , instead said, “I’ll talk to him.”

“Get him off our backs. I don’t want to have to do this again tomorrow or the next day or whenever his imagination gets the better of him,” Kavinsky said. “I don’t give a fuck if he’s feeling left out.”

“I got it,” Adam said, getting out of the mitsu. Kavinsky slammed his car door, before passing right in front of Adam and heading through the sliding glass doors without another glance to the offending car. 

Adam walked by the air pump and rental propane tanks, stepping over the curb and through the shoddily kept grass divider. He’d been meaning to ask Ronan to leave off following them for a while. Adam didn’t really care about Ronan’s reasons for why, whether he was just bored or otherwise; but he needed to stop. Coming around to the driver’s side, Adam could see Ronan pointedly ignoring him. Even through the tint, he was, absurdly, pretending to do something on his phone. 

Adam knocked on the window. As he expected, Ronan did not startle, only rolled it down in a resigned manner.

“Hey,” Adam greeted.

“Hey.”

“Waiting for your India Palace order?”

“No.”

Adam nodded looking over the top of the car, checking that K hadn’t come back yet. He couldn’t see him _in_ the store from this distance, which was an impressive show of restraint on Kavinsky’s part. Adam had half expected him to be spying on them through the glass. Still, Adam doubted Kavinsky would give him more than ten minutes before he was back out here looking for a fight. 

“You need to stop.”

Ronan said nothing.

“I want you to stop,” Adam repeated.

“Why?”

“Because it’s creepy and annoying,” Adam said, summing it up with both K and his own descriptors.

“Me having your back can’t be annoying,” Ronan said, all distain.

“Is _that_ why you're following us?”

Ronan’s face didn’t move and that was a confirmation as much as anything.

“You don't think I can handle myself,” Adam realized.

“It's not that I don't trust you,” Ronan said, letting out the most bombastic sigh. “I don't trust them.”

“You don’t need to worry about me.”

“You don’t know Kavinsky,” Ronan said, finally looking at Adam. There was something softer and worried in his eyes.

“But the thing is neither do you,” Adam said. Ronan proved that when he came to the Fourth, when he spat in Kavinsky’s face after he’d helped unlock an entire universe for him, and he’d been proving it this whole last week by needlessly following them around. “You’re embarrassing yourself, more than you already have.”

“As if I care, Parrish,” Ronan gritted out, watching the leather bands he was fiddling with.

“Do I have to remind you Cabeswater already has my back?” Adam said. “Or don’t you think I can make this work to my advantage?”

Ronan clicked his tongue against his teeth, disparaging Adam for even asking that question.

“Then stop following me and let me handle it.”

“Fine,” Ronan growled, then in an only minorly less curt tone asked, “See you Sunday?” 

“Sure,” Adam said.

Ronan took one final glance over of Adam, before giving him a nod to step back. He did and Ronan peeled out of the parking lot. Adam watched him go, turning back the way they had come and not into the heart of what passed as Henrietta’s downtown towards Monmouth.

Adam shoved his hands into his pockets and after a second, made the walk back to the gas station. K wasn’t waiting in the Evo. So Adam crossed the large squares of flat warm cement to the convenience store and poked his head into the ostensibly empty rows of refreshingly cool junk food and humming artificial lighting.

“Get Skov some Oreos!” Adam called and then after a beat, “And some chips for Swan!”

“Already on it!” K shouted and appeared from behind one of the overstocked aisles. “And to answer your next question, I got Jiang his sour gummy worms. And the coup d’grace,” K said heaving an overflowing red basket onto the counter for check out. He dug underneath the Doritos, Swan’s favorite Salsa Verde flavor, a six pack of gatorade, and the various packages of candy, to pull out a huge chocolate cookie with white chocolate chips in it and a smiling grandmother on the package. 

“Proko will be pleased,” Adam agreed, as the most impassive clerk in all of Henrietta began to ring it all up. 

Once Kavinsky had paid and they stepped back out into the warm night air, he and Adam each carrying a plastic bag of goodies, Kavinsky said, “You did good, Poison Ivy.” The India Palace parking lot was empty of any and all charcoal grey bimmers. Adam merely grimaced, walking to the car in silence.

“How’d that feel?” K asked in the privacy of the Evo. 

“Irritating,” Adam said shortly.

“Really?” K asked, eyes snapping to him, pleasantly surprised.

“He wants me to come with them to Cabeswater Sunday.”

The reminder that Ronan had taken his mom to Cabeswater so soon after it had reappeared and with no greater trust in Adam or his ability to hold traction over Kavinsky was like a fly crawling over his skin. When Adam lifted a hand to bat it away, the fly took off. But once he went back to his work, there; the fly would land again. It still made him feel rotten for begrudging Ronan his only remaining parent, but his reckless hypocrisy was inexcusable. Adam could never come up with excuses for Ronan, not ones that would fool himself at least. 

“That's not why he’s following us around,” K said with a frown.

“Of course not.”

“Well?” K asked. “C’mon, give me the play-by-play.”

“You’re a fuckin’ voyeur.”

“So?” K demanded. “Aren’t you glad I didn’t _escalate_ the situation by standing over your shoulder the whole time? C’mon, Ivy, don’t hold out on me!”

“What do you think happened?” Adam asked. “I told him to stop. He asked why? I said it was creepy. He told me he had my back. I said I didn’t need that. He said I didn't know you, I said he didn't either.”

K laughed at that.

“I reminded him that I can handle myself and he finally agreed to stop, _but_ only after I said I would go with them out to Cabeswater Sunday.”

“Ha! Sucks to be you!” K crowed.

Adam glared over at him. He opened his mouth intent on saying something about how K didn’t even know the half of it; maybe even venting some of his frustration, but Kavinsky had pulled up to a stop sign and caught Adam’s eye. 

“Let it goooooooo, Poison Ivy,” K said, cupping the back of Adam’s neck. K’s hand against his skin felt nice; distracting him from what it sounded like Kavinsky was really saying: ‘let _them_ go.’ For some reason Adam could still feel K’s hand on his knee like it was only the night before, not weeks ago. Gansey’s comment about the collar still rang in his ears.

Adam leaned into K’s hand, leaned forward, cupping the back of K’s neck in turn and tilting his head so he could look over the tops of his shades and into his eyes when he said, “You can do that all you want, but you still don’t own me.”

Adam watched the tightening of the skin around Kavinsky’s eyes, the slight raise of his brows, and the pensive twist of his mouth.

“No,” Kavinsky agreed, thoughtful and ambivalent. Ironically, not outright disappointed; still distracting, still stroking Adam’s neck with his thumb. But then his lips twisted up in a nasty smile when he said, “You're not Dick Gansey's either.”

_Adam Parrish, army of one._

“No.”

“The forest’s then?”

“Cabeswater and I have a _deal_ ,” Adam clarified. “We’re partners in that at most. Like me and you.”

K pulled back from him then. Adam let go, but still watched him closely. Kavinsky had his thoughtful expression on. 

“Adam Parrish,” K said finally taking the turn. “His own man.”

Adam liked the sound of that.

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes it was easy to forget that K was _Joey K_ , Henrietta’s most notorious drug dealer and forger. 

He certainly wasn’t the only dealer in town, but his stuff had the reputation of being the best. People tended to have the idea that his mob ties back in Jersey were the reason Kavinsky was able to front the really good stuff. Adam knew that had nothing to do with it. 

With most of the Aglionby boys having gone to their family homes or on holiday, the forgery and drug demand had allegedly slowed since summer break started. But Kavinsky still had a fair amount of local customers or Ag kids who for whatever reason didn’t have homes to return to. However, as Adam had not been familiar with K’s business in its peak season, he had nothing to compare their runs to.

Now unable to dream up product whenever an order came in, K developed a new routine and told all his clients that they had better order a week before they wanted something. Kavinsky would dream up all his forgeries on Sunday, keeping them in neat prepared bundles organized by client and what time he had set up the trade.

What happened at those drops, Adam didn’t know. Kavinsky had never invited him to one. 

Adam wasn’t quite sure what they did while he was at work. But Kavinsky made no secret that he was going on a drop when Adam was with them the rest of the time, usually taking both Swan and Proko.

That first week Adam had waited for Kavinsky to press gang him into tagging along. He had assumed, despite what he had said about walking if it came to anything that would put Ag in jeopardy, K would push the issue.

That hadn’t happened.

As the weeks passed, K still had not tried to get him to come. Adam reevaluated.

Adam thought perhaps K had not wanted Adam there because he hadn’t been sure of his trustworthiness. K might be able to tell him what a jerk he thought Ronan had been, but inviting Adam, untested in loyalty, along for the sale of ostensibly illegal product was quite another. Only one of those activities was monitored by police, for example.

Adam, though he had only the most elementary and dramatized version of how a drug drop went down, couldn’t figure another reason K couldn’t use three more sets of eyes.

Except possibly that he was following Adam’s wishes to be kept out of K’s below board activities. 

This automatic exclusion prompted Adam to reconsider himself. Why did this even bother him? Logically, Adam was grateful that K had not put him in the position to have to say ‘no;’ to choose. But he was also offended not to be asked in equal measure. It was a stupid place to be, because even though Adam had given it a great deal of thought back when he had been certain K would demand it of him; ultimately Adam had never decided if he even wanted to go.

It would satisfy some sick curiosity in him that sparked every time K disappeared with two of the others. Adam didn’t even really think it would be all that dangerous physically, as most of K’s clients weren’t too remarkable —or so he was lead to believe. Plus there was the cut to consider. Adam had watched K peel hundreds off a roll and just hand them to Proko and Swan for what could have been no more than thirty minutes work. 

More than anything else, Adam wanted to see where that line between K and Joey K would blur.

But on the other side of that scale was Virginia State Law concerning the illegality of manufacturing or distributing or even possessing counterfeit prohibited substances. The laws were detailed getting right down to the grams of typical controlled substances. Clearly aimed at dealers who cut their product with talcum powder or Boraxo, Adam wasn't sure what that meant for K's dream drugs. With Blue’s cautionary warning still on his mind, Adam couldn't chance it.

So K and his two lieutenants kept slipping out and Adam said nothing. 

 

 

 

 

 

Adam went with Ronan, Gansey, and Blue to Cabeswater Sunday to meet Ronan’s mom mainly because Ronan had asked him and because he was curious what a dream mother was like. He had never met Aurora, had only gotten to know Ronan after his family went to shit, but Adam heard stories of her loveliness from Gansey.

In theory, the day shouldn’t have been that different from any of the other times they had gone out there earlier that June. He and Gansey weren’t talking, but that wasn’t anything new. In fact, the argument at Gansey’s parents had been the realest they had been with each other for weeks. Since then the frosty distance that had grown between them only became more slippery with ice.

Adam knew he had hurt Blue when he said the pack was helping him. She probably thought it wasn’t fair. Why hadn’t he asked her to help him? Why invite people the others hated into this thing that was ...their’s? But fixing the line wasn’t their’s. It was Adam’s responsibility and maybe it _hadn’t_ been fair, but his deal with K didn’t really allow them to help him anyway. So the tension between them was different, although also not entirely new.

Adam had thought maybe they could rise above it. These were his friends. But that didn’t seem to matter with everything they’d left unsaid since April having finally been spoken aloud. All that would have been enough to get over, even without Gansey’s nearly unforgivable comment about him and Kavinsky two Sunday's ago.

And yes, maybe Adam wanted to see if Gansey would take the opportunity to apologize for that. He just hadn’t counted on it being so difficult. Adam had gone and they had all been stifled by the elephant in the forest for a couple hours. 

It only got worse as they sat together in a booth at Nino’s. At least at Cabeswater there was the distraction of Aurora and the forest itself. Ronan’s mom was indeed very lovely. She was considerate, kind, and only interested in making her conversational partner happy, which just made Ronan’s actions that much more inexplicable. If he really didn’t trust K to stick to their agreement and believed that Cabeswater could disappear the moment Kavinsky got bored with their deal, why would he place his mother in the position to disappear with it?

Adam had not expected Ronan to ease the tensions, but since he had been the one to invite Adam, he had hoped he would have made some effort. But Ronan had an allergy to useless small talk. Adam couldn't blame him, though that left them in interminable silence when they weren’t talking about progress in the Glendower search. 

It was Noah who made the day at all tolerable. Which was ironic because Adam and Noah had never been all that great friends before. Except that too was marred by an uncomfortable unspoken thing.

Once they had put in their order for the pizzas, Gansey made some comment about how he’d been concerned about Noah and how they were all glad to see him, while suggesting with insinuating worry that the line might still not be back to its strength from before Ronan and Kavinsky’s dream date. Blue even added that she had been concerned too. 

“I’m telling you, man” Ronan cut in. “The line’s stable.”

“Oh, I've been around,” Noah told Gansey and Blue. What he didn’t say, however but what Adam knew, was how Noah had actually been spending much of his time with the pack, and with Skov in particular. Thinking back on it, Adam realized he rarely saw them apart anymore. “The line's been a lot stronger with just me and Cabeswater using it.”

That was as close as the conversation came to Adam’s arrangement with Kavinsky. Still Adam bailed on the offer for going back to Monmouth for ice cream. He drove back to St. Agnes with Cabeswater lapping at the edges of his mind.

 

 

 

 

 

act iii: i have carried consecration and then you expelled all decision 

 

 

 

 

 

“Hold up,” Kavinsky said, interrupting Adam as he was heatedly filling K in on what had gone down yesterday. “I thought she was in a coma?”

It was that time of morning where it was just the two of them. Early enough for the others to still be asleep, but also late enough for Swan and Jiang to have already left for the city. They were in the kitchen, hunched over the island, eating frosted Cherrios by the handful. Kavinsky, with some sort of cran-grape juice, and Adam with a mug of surprisingly good hibiscus blueberry tea. 

“She had been,” Adam said, glossing over K's creepy knowledge of Ronan's personal life. He leaned on the island to snag a few Cherrios. “Apparently that's what happens to dreams when dreamers die.”

Adam waited for K to crack some joke about Niall for having to dream up a wife. But the room was silent. After flicking a few Cheerios into the goal that was the web of skin between K’s thumb and forefinger, Adam finally glanced up. There was no trace of humor anywhere. K was staring at him with an oddly concerned expression Adam had never seen on his face before. 

“What do you mean?” Kavinsky asked.

“Living dreams fall into comas when their dreamer dies,” Adam repeated, uneasy but not sure _why_. 

“He’s _sure_ that his mom was a dream?”

“Well, it wasn’t just his mom that fell asleep when Ronan’s dad died,” Adam explained. K, at least in the month Adam had started running with them, wouldn't touch Ronan with a ten foot pole unless it was to fight him. This sudden interest in his _mom_ was even more baffling. “But all his herds of cattle went to sleep and the other creatures he dreamed too.”

“Why didn’t he just wake them up?” Kavinsky demanded, panicked.

“He tried,” Adam said slowly. “We tried. but they wouldn’t.”

“You saw them?”

Adam nodded, watching K closely. 

“They were _alive_ , but un-wakable?” Kavinsky clarified. “Did he try giving them a stimulant?”

“The doctors couldn’t figure out why his mom was in a coma. There was no reason for it. She wasn’t sick. She had never been sick a day in her life apparently. But three days after Ronan’s dad died, she and all his other dream creatures on the farm just went to sleep. Her coma had to be a side-effect of the death of the dreamer,” Adam said pedantically. “Why are you so interested in this?”

But that wasn’t really Adam’s question. It was obvious why K would be interested. Kavinsky undeniably cared about his dream creatures, but this was an extreme reaction to learning that his fish might sleep forever if he died. Which could only mean...

K had dreamt a person too.

“Who is it?” Adam asked before he could stop himself. 

K glanced over at him hedgily.

“What about a dreamed stimulant?” K asked again.

“I don’t know.”

“She’s awake now that she’s in the forest?”

Adam nodded.

“And he just left her there to what?” K’s voice became derisive. “What can she do there? Camp? All by herself? Till he comes to visit?”

“She’s been asleep for years,” Adam pointed out. “I think she might like to go camping instead.”

K frowned staring down at the counter. Adam watched him. 

“I want to talk to her,” K said, looking up calmer and resolved.

“What?” Adam demanded. “You-”

Family was private. Adam didn’t want anyone in his business and knew Ronan was very particular about who he let in too. K couldn’t just—But he wasn’t about to tell Kavinsky he couldn’t go and find her. K wasn’t asking permission. He would go regardless and K telling Adam he was going right now was Kavinsky asking if Adam wanted to come with him.

“Now?” Adam asked. “You think Cabeswater would listen to you?” 

“It won’t be able to hide her from me forever. The forest knows I can just meet up with her when I’m dreaming,” Kavinsky pointed out. “Look, I’m going whether you’re coming or not, Poison Ivy. So make up you’re mind.”

Adam weighed the options before him. He could let Kavinsky go speak to Ronan’s mom while he went and warned Ronan and they would arrive too late to do anything but catch him for a parking lot fight. Or he could go with K now, act as a chaperon, and try and smooth over whatever K wanted with Aurora.

It wasn’t much of a question. Adam was horribly, embarrassingly curious over who Kavinsky cared about saving from eternal sleep if he happened to die. Adam doubted he would tell Ronan’s mom, but if Adam went with him and acted like everything was cool he might be able to get it out of him after. 

“Yeah, alright” Adam conceded. “Let’s go.”

 

 

 

 

 

“Mrs. Lynch!” Kavinsky yelled when they had stepped into Cabeswater after fifteen minutes of K’s most recklessly speedy daytime driving later.

“You better hope Ronan's not here,” Adam said, after mentally synching up with the forest.

Kavinsky looked at the trees around them, his eyes narrowed, “He's not.” Adam didn’t know how K could intuit Ronan’s absence, but before he could wonder this aloud, Kavinsky asked, “Where was she yesterday?”

“She was over this way when Ronan brought us yesterday,” Adam explained.

They walked in relative silence for twenty minutes or so, K’s attitude forbidding all conversation. When they came to the wild rose garden and the granite wall, Adam called out, “Mrs. Lynch?”

“Adam,” Aurora greeted with a smile after she had stepped out of the rock and moss, impossible and ethereal. She turned to Kavinsky, “And you’ve brought a friend I see.”

“Yes,” Adam said, stepping awkwardly back. “Mrs. Lynch, this is Joseph Kavinsky.”

K, who had been standing a couple feet away, closed the distance between them with his hand outstretched. He hadn’t taken off his shades, but it was clear he was examining Niall’s work in an appraising type of way that made Adam uncomfortable.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Aurora said, clasping his hand in her’s.

“You as well,” Kavinsky returned and, after a moment, he took his hand back, “I was hoping to ask you some questions.”

“Oh?” Aurora said, her tone implying complete surprise that they could have been here for anything other than to enjoy the natural splendor. “About what?”

“About how your husband’s death affected you.”

While Aurora merely blinked softly at Kavinsky, Adam nearly choked on his own breath at the callousness of K’s question. Sure, Ronan had been a shit to K, but that didn’t mean he had to have a go at his mom. A murder of crows flew over them cawing. The forest suddenly got chillier. K ignored Cabeswater’s response to its magician’s emotions, calmly waiting for Aurora’s determination. 

“I see,” Aurora finally said.

“You don’t have to,” Adam broke in. “We can leave. It was rude of us to impose-”

“It’s quite alright, Adam. Though I would prefer this conversation with the sun back, if you don’t mind,” she turned back to K. “What do you want to know?”

“Do you remember being... asleep?” Kavinsky asked.

Aurora considered this question. “No, it was a dark sleep. No dreamers. No dreams. Just blackness.”

“And how long _after_ did it take for you to...”

“Three days,” she said, before leaning in confidentially and admitting in a lower voice. “They weren’t pleasant.”

“How...so?” Kavinsky inquired reluctantly. Aurora answered this and K’s other questions about what she did with her time in Cabeswater, if she felt any different here then before, among other things, till he seemed to have exhausted all his questions except one, the most difficult to get out. Aurora was patient though and that was what made Adam tell Cabeswater to hush the wind. 

“Do you miss him?” K asked finally. He wasn’t even looking at her full on, seemingly staring at her curly hair catching golden in the sunlight. 

“Of course,” Aurora said, instantly. “Of course, I do. That never goes away.”

Kavinsky cut his gaze to the smashed remains of cherries on the ground; the deep maroon stains and stark tan pits mixed in amongst the half-burnt grass. The confusion of seasons that Cabeswater permitted them to affect on it revealed.

“You’re like my husband, aren't you?” Aurora asked, a question of her own, but from the way she was looking at Kavinsky, she seemed to already know the answer.

K nodded.

Aurora hummed and stepped into his space. As she wrapped her arms around him, Kavinsky let her hold him close. Aurora spoke into their embrace and Adam was just able to make out her words, “Everyone dies. That's just the way life goes. There's no way to stop it, only ways of holding it off. Careful wasn’t in my husband’s nature, but I wouldn’t have asked him to be anything else. And if that's not true to your nature either you won't feel like you're living life to the fullest. Which is the most important thing there is. And your dreams will be grateful that you brought them to life at all.”

“You haven't met my dreams,” Kavinsky said, barely a mumble.

“Oh, honey,” she pulled back, holding him at arm’s length. “The fact that you're here at all tells me everything I need to know.”

Kavinsky stared at her, even after she let her hands slide off him. Then K nodded his thanks before turning and walking away. Adam let him have a head start to compose himself and to have a word with Aurora.

“Can you,” Adam hesitated, before reaffirming his decision and stepping up to Mrs. Lynch. “Can you _not_ tell Ronan that we were here?”

A frown that clearly did not belong on Aurora Lynch’s face muddied her brow and her lips formed a concerned line. “But why ever not?” 

“Ronan and ... Joseph aren’t speaking,” Adam said haltingly. It was weird to call K by his given name. “They had a pretty bad fight about a month ago.”

“Then Ronan will want to hear about how worried Joseph was over the things in his care. Maybe knowing will help him change his perspective...”

“This isn’t that kind of fight,” Adam said, shaking his head.

The furrow in Aurora's brow didn't clear, but she conceded. “I won't bring it up to him, but if he asks me directly I am not going to lie about this. Joseph is a good boy. I can't imagine why he and Ronan would be fighting.”

“As long as you don't mention it, I'll be mighty grateful.”

“I won't,” Aurora said. “I do hope you come back to visit me. This was very pleasant. Tell Joseph that it was good to meet him and I didn’t mind his questions one bit.”

Adam didn’t know how that could be true, but all he said was, “Thank you for your help today, Mrs. Lynch.”

 

 

 

 

 

Kavinsky was already in the Evo with the bass cranked, when Adam stepped out of Cabeswater. He was so preoccupied, staring out at the road they would take back into town, that K didn’t say anything when Adam turned Bobkata’s ‘112’ down fractionally.

Adam let K have the music of the drive back, while he got his own thoughts in order. Adam had so many questions he wanted to ask Kavinsky, but he would settle for one. _Who was it that he had dreamt?_

It had to be someone K cared about. Could it be his mom? _Maybe_ , Adam thought, _the touchiness around K’s mom wasn’t merely from mental illness, but from a dream gone wrong._

By the time K pulled into his driveway and killed the engine, Adam had got up the nerve to ask again.

“It’s one of them, isn’t it?” Adam said, nodding towards the mansion. It had to be K’s mother or one of his friends.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” K turned and met Adam’s gaze. “I’m just worried about my dad.”

Adam mentally kicked himself for a moment. Rumor around Ag, depending on who you talked to, was Kavinsky had tried to kill his dad—or that his dad had tried to kill him. No one had the details. Only the vague idea that Jersey mobsters—or Bulgarian mobsters—were vicious and that was one way to train their brood to be just as cruel—or it could have been because Joey K had just been a particularly annoying shit that day. It was an open secret among the pack, however, that K had _succeeded_ in killing his dad. Kavinsky senior was, of course, for all intents and purposes still alive though. Adam was a fool not to put the pieces together on that sooner. 

But Kavinsky _didn’t_ give a fuck he had murdered his own dad. K walked around his father in conversations like Adam walked around Robert Parrish. They were not topics of polite talk. These were not subjects they wished to dwell. These were not family they were proud of. K was not worried about his dad.

K seemed to sense that his lie hadn’t fooled Adam and a ragged smirk took up the corners of his mouth. Obviously, it was someone else. The loss in his eyes made Adam think of what it would be like to need to dream a copy of one of your best friends or mother.

K sighed and jerked his head toward the house. 

Adam trailed behind as Kavinsky unlocked the front door and went into the kitchen. Adam stood by the fridge as he bent down and pulled out two red gatorades from a lower cabinet, tossing one to Adam. K had already open his and drank half of it by the time Adam thought maybe he should go downstairs to the other’s and let K be alone for a bit. 

He turned and went through the open basement door. He was half way down the stairs when he heard K following him. 

K’s strange interrogation of Aurora aside, Adam honestly felt a bit rotten for having told him. It hadn’t occurred to Adam at the time, but obviously K wouldn’t have known what happened to dreams once their dreamers died. He supposed Ronan could have mentioned it the weekend before the Fourth, but he was so tight lipped about his family, Adam couldn’t imagine him filling K in, especially not with how much K hammed up his fuck-boy image. No one would have bet that Kavinsky genuinely cared about any of his dreams. And if Lynch hadn’t told him, where else could K have learned that? 

The thing was, if any one bothered looking passed the façade, they would know that Kavinsky cared, quite deeply for his dream creatures. It was little wonder why the idea that they would all just cease if he died, would be distressing. Harrowing. It was hard news and not something that should just be sprung on someone.

Still, Adam couldn’t bring himself to regret it. Regardless of what Aurora said—she was made to love that man anyway—if K knew what risk he was putting his dreams in by doing all this stupid shit maybe it would make him think twice about some of it. 

K was on an one-man-army-slaughter-everything-in-sight-mission on the Xbox and Adam had taken up the entirety of Swan’s customary couch with a book. He had the reading light over him flicked on, but he wasn’t making any progress.

“Aren’t you glad you know at least?” Adam finally asked.

“Not really, honestly,” K said voice low and even. His eyes never leaving the screen, as he savagely punched the x and trigger buttons in rapid succession. 

Adam sat back watching the fiery explosions projected on the screen.

Kavinsky’s morose mood lasted for the rest of the afternoon and evening. Even when Proko and Skov finally rolled up, he barely glanced up at them. 

They, of course, picked up on his near grief-like state immediately. Neither pried, but each tried in their own ways to rouse K back to himself. Skov disappeared upstairs with the promise of pot brownies.

It was only Prokopenko who was able to at least draw a sad smile from him. K handed over the controller and tucked himself up against Proko in an uncaring display of vulnerability and something clicked in Adam’s mind watching them.

Adam stared at Kavinsky. _Could he have dreamt Prokopenko?_

Proko was K’s best friend. So that would certainly explain why Kavinsky had been so affected by this news. 

Adam couldn’t bring himself to believe it though. Proko was so human; his appearance and personality riddled with defects. Just last week he and Adam had gotten into a discussion of Vonnegut and he nearly always beat Adam at backgammon. He didn’t have the vacuous, airy carefree manner of Aurora. But K’s dreams were always, regardless of how fanciful, grounded in reality. Adam however, couldn’t deny the otherness he’d seen catch in Proko’s eyes on more then one occasion. How sometimes he would look at Adam. How he would _pin_ him.

Proko had seemed to rightly divine that Adam had been the source of K's melancholy. He spent the afternoon giving Adam the stink eye when he wasn't _snuggling_ with Kavinsky or trying to poke him into a better mood. Adam had half a mind to tell him not to kill the messenger. But if Adam’s guess was correct and Proko was a dream creature, did he even know he was a forgery? Adam was not getting in the middle of that.

Skov was back down in no time with an alarm set for when the treats would be done. Forty-five minutes later, Skov’s phone started beeping and, surprising everyone, K had volunteered to take them out. But he never came back.

“Think he ate ‘em all?” Skov asked, after perhaps twenty minutes of increasingly awkward gunshots on the projector.

“They have to set up first,” Proko pointed out.

“They've set up by now...” Skov said.

Adam got up. 

“Alright, Ivy!” Skov cheered. “Taking one for the team! Just bring the whole pan down with a knife. Hey, you know where the oven mitts are?”

Adam nodded vaguely, already mentally compiling a list of where he might find Kavinsky. He just hoped he hadn’t gone up to his mother’s rooms. Despite his curiosity and whatever responsible feeling he had for K’s current malaise, Adam wasn’t going to follow him in there.

Proko stopped him with a hand and stared up at Adam stonily with that icy _other_ thing in his eyes. They said one thing: _You better fix this._

Adam didn’t think anyone would be able to do that. K’s horrible mourning in advance would have to run its course or spurn him to find a solution beyond the forest. Adam would, however, try to bring Kavinsky back to them. K didn’t like being alone. This self-imposed exile was ...concerning.

Adam stepped out of the theater and stopped short, all his plans for where to find K rendered irrelevant. 

Kavinsky was laying at a diagonal angle on the stairs, shades shoved firmly over his eyes. Though he had tilted his head to see who had come out of the room.

“Hey,” Adam greeted, letting the door close behind him. 

“Hey,” K returned, a black cigarette half ash in his hand. He sat up and shuffled to one side of the stairs. 

“The brownies should be set up, if you took them out.”

“Yep,” K agreed and after a considered pause, in which it became clear Adam was not trying to get upstairs or duck in the half-open door to the bathroom, he said, “I get why you were pissed.” 

“What?” Adam asked, blindsided by the non-sequitur. 

“About Ronan and his mom, I get it,” K said and blew out a long plume of smoke. Adam watched it wistfully. He had smoked the rest of his pack on the way to Cabeswater and back today. He wasn’t sure how K’s musing brought him back to this topic, but he really wanted a smoke if they were gonna get into it.

“Can I...?” Adam trailed off, gesturing to the cigarette in K's hand.

Kavinsky handed him the rest of his own smokes. K’s yellow packs were a strange concoction, more like vaping then an actual cigarette. Of course, they were unique. Good, but an acquired taste. Adam took one out, before holding the pack back at K. “Keep ‘em. I'll grab another of yours later. But like seriously how much shit did he give you when you struck this deal?”

“Too much to turn around and just accept that you would stay in line,” Adam agreed, lighting up. “He kept going on about how I couldn't trust you and yet-” Adam made a ‘here we are’ gesture.

K scoffed. “I get wanting to have your mom back. I mean I _get_ that, but like why would he risk it? If he doesn’t trust me? Like I wouldn’t do that to someone I loved if our positions were reversed.”

Adam shrugged, “Desperate maybe? Like you said I’m sure he missed her.”

K scoffed again. “Man, am I sorry you have to deal with _that_.”

Adam shrugged.

“I mean what a hypocrite,” K continued. “Honestly, fuck Ronan Lynch. I think you should tell him to go fuck himself. I cannot believe the stupid shit...”

“Wow,” Adam said, in a breath of a disbelieving laugh. Adam was annoyed with Ronan sure, but he would not go so far as to ‘ _tell him to go fuck himself_.’ It was still good to see K out of the low he’d been in since morning. “Tell me what you really think.”

“Well, fuck Ronan Lynch,” K repeated, a grin gracing his features for the first time, board and cheery. “You already know I think Dick Gansey is a waste of time.”

“Gansey’s not that bad,” Adam said, around his cigarette.

K raised a solitary eyebrow.

“He means well.”

“If you say so, but that doesn’t forgive his bullshit. I don’t know how you can stand him.”

“He’s my friend,” Adam said. 

K’s expression remained dubious, but at least he had the grace not to point out that Adam had only spoken to Gansey yesterday for the first time in nearly three weeks. 

“I like Noah, but the rest of ‘em?” K made a cutting off gesture by his neck. “It’s not just about that Welsh king, is it?”

“No,” Adam dismissed with a frown. They’d been over this: why Adam was helping Gansey look for Glendower and how they hoped to wake him to receive a favor. “You’d get it then? If that was why?”

“Not really?” K said. “Maybe when you were still living with your dad? But not any more. I mean you seem to be doing pretty fine by yourself now.”

“Why leave it to chance?” Adam shrugged, though he had been starting to wonder the same thing.

“But there’s no guarantee there will be a favor,” K reminded him. “Hell, I could probably give you what you would ask for. _Right now_.”

“You’re forgetting that Glendower grants the favor _in gratitude_ for waking him up,” Adam pointed out. “Since we’ve already established you don’t need any help with your car, I don’t really have much else to offer.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Kavinsky said eyes intent on him and appraising. 

Adam watched K, wary.

“Besides, real friends wouldn’t need something in return,” K shrugged standing, expression shuddered. “I’ll get the brownies.”

 

 

 

 

 

To say that Adam found the cave would be generous and only partially true. It was more like Cabeswater had revealed its existence to him while he was scrying one day in early August.

Indeed, when they drove out the next day, Adam found the cave right where Cabeswater had showed him where it would be. Adam eyed it, uneasily, as Swan beside him commented, “That’s good, right?”

“Probably,” Adam had said. And it _probably_ was, but as this cave was, quite literally, in the shadow of the vision tree, Adam felt justified in his apprehension. 

Cabeswater was skittish.

Despite the forest coming through and giving him a clue that had the potential to lead them to Glendower, Adam didn’t think it would be safe just to go down there as if it were a normal cave. 

He didn’t want a repeat of Cabeswater’s reaction to K, especially if they were all marching down a pitch black tunnel. Being _inside_ Cabeswater if it started freaking out had deadly consequences. It wasn’t that Adam didn’t think he, or Ronan, couldn’t calm the forest down, but he was more concerned with the time it would take to do so. There were a lot of things that could happen.

What they needed to do was approach this slowly, like Persephone’s exercises with K. They needed to warm the forest up to them and gain its trust.

He told Gansey and the others that it would be best for them to let Cabeswater get to know them before they went into the cave. It was Blue he had to persuade especially. She was more than eager to explore the cave now as she was still grappling with her mother’s disappearance and cryptic note about being underground. He was finally able to convince her waiting was the right move after using the metaphor of letting a dog sniff your hand before petting it. So Gansey, Ronan, sometimes Noah, and Blue, with Matthew in tow, spent what time they could spare in the forest, which was a great deal or so Adam was led to believe. 

Adam never saw them there coincidentally though.

Instead it was with Kavinsky, that Adam got to know Cabeswater, with the pack tagging along if they didn’t have a better offer. Having the others with them put K at ease when they were in the forest. Knowing more of K’s relationship with Cabeswater, Adam couldn't begrudge him the pack’s comforting, though ultimately placebo-like, presence.

It was in those afternoons that Adam got to know the pack better too. Hearing Swan’s thoughts on his most recent reading of _For Colored Girls_. Getting a peak at Jiang’s more recent tat designs, when he wasn’t trading sketches with K, and offers to comp his first tattoo whenever Adam got up the nerve. Finding out Skov was all set to take over his family’s business, some trans-Atlantic furniture scheme, and endless rounds of backgammon with Proko.

If he wasn’t getting to know the pack better, he was improving communication with the forest. Scrying while in Cabeswater was not as fruitless a task as Adam would have initially thought. Though just by being in the forest he was able to connect with it easily. In cutting out all other distractions by scrying, Adam was able to achieve an even clearer connection.

And there Kavinsky would be, watching him scry like he was holding a vigil, always with something burning between his fingers. K never had to pull Adam out. He never even went to sleep. That was another benefit of scrying _in_ Cabeswater; Adam didn’t have to go far from his body at all. But like a gymnast practicing his routine, the importance of a spotter could not be underestimated and the attention which Kavinsky devoted to the task was a surprising comfort.

 

 

 

 

 

Kavinsky had told him to make himself at home in the mansion. While Adam hadn’t quite made it that far yet, it didn’t feel like an invasion if he was thirsty and wanted to fill a glass of water or grab a water bottle. Adam had no aversion to tapwater, so he’d let himself in the front door, he headed into the kitchen. 

Adam was stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of an incredibly beautiful woman cutting fruit at the island counter. She had long black hair and sharp cheek bones. But she was even more emaciated than her son. The juicer next to her, though currently off, was the culprit of several pitchers of purple, green, and orange liquids. She must have sensed his presence, because she glanced up at him with a startled ‘Oh!” Adam noticed her eyes were a lighter shade than her sons.

“Hello!” she greeted with a decently thick Bulgarian accent. “You must be a friend of Joey's,” she looked at him hard, “But I don't think I've seen you before.”

“No, we haven't met, ma’am,” he agreed. “I'm Adam Parrish.”

“Pleasure, I would shake your hand but,” she gestured to the fruit and the juices it had left behind on her hands.

“It's alright, Mrs. Kavinsky.”

“Please, call me Radina.”

“Parrish!” Kavinsky shouted from the basement. “Get down here! We need your brain!”

“Go on,” she nodded with a quiet smile towards the basement.

Adam, befuddled, took the stairs down two at a time. In the theater, the pack was watching Proko play DDR by himself.

“Your mom’s up there,” Adam said to K’s slumped form. 

No one said anything.

“Making juice,” Adam continued hoping someone would explain what was going on.

“Yeah,” K said sounding tired by this observation.

“Give her a few days,” Skov said. “She’ll vanish again.”

Kavinsky grabbed a dvd case off the shelf behind him and hurled it at Skov with a snarled, “Shut the fuck up.”

“It’s the _truth_ ,” Skov grumbled, rubbing vigorously at his shin. “ _God_ , K, why do you gotta be such a bitch?”

“You can leave,’ K said.

“Or you could just chill the fuck out.”

“Did she say she was gonna bring us down some juice when she was done?” Jiang asked in the uncomfortable silence that followed. 

“She didn’t say,” Adam said throwing himself on the couch next to K. 

Kavinsky wasn’t sulking. Any indication of petulance was completely absent from the furrow between his brows. He wasn’t even looking in Skov’s direction anymore. Just staring middle distance at the floor in front of him.

Adam nudged K’s knee with his own, “So, what was it you wanted my brain for?”

K turned to him and said, “You were in advanced Bio last year.”

Adam nodded.

“You remember that small group's lesson on bioluminescence at all?”

“You could ask Google,” Adam pointed out, thinking back to the group presentation three students gave on it last May. Schultz had let small groups pick a topic, which they had a week and a half to research, before they presented their findings to the class. It was supposed to be a change of pace from reading the text and lectures; a way to keep the boys engaged. But in reality it meant the only students who really learned anything about a topic were the ones presenting it. 

K shrugged, “Asking you.”

“What do you want to know?”

Adam only then saw Kavinsky had been holding a notebook. He had it open to a very rough drawing of a weird elongated owl-stork hybrid.

“I only want portions of her to light up,” Kavinsky explained, drawing a finger along the sections for the birds feathers that were shaded in. “What should I do?”

“You remember you don’t actually have to follow the rules of biology,” Adam said. “That by even making this you're already breaking them?”

“I’m not gonna dream her _right now,_ ” K said with a roll of his eyes. Adam realized that perhaps this owl exercise might be more about the challenge and to get K’s mind off his mother than any real forgery. “Ivy, you’re not helping!”

“Ok, ok, as you know,” Adam said, thinking back to K’s dream fish. “Basically speaking you need two things...a molecule that emits light and a pair of enzymes...”

 

 

 

 

 

“Now, you gotta imagine how it will feel at night,” Kavinsky said as they stepped into the main room of the old factory building. The machinery had been cleared away long ago, but for years the factory had still failed to attract new tenants. That was where Kavinsky came in. For a night at least.

The decrepit building was in a part of town that was disused after sundown, and truth be told it was seldom used in the day either. This lack of neighbors to complain about noise was the deciding factor that made it the site of Joey K’s next big party. 

This one would not even be half the size of the Fourth. It wouldn’t even be as big as K’s back to school bash—which he was already budgeting forgery space for each Sunday— but it would still be a big enough excuse for anyone to get their fix of K’s supply, even if Ag wouldn’t require them to be back in the dorms for almost another month.

Adam looked around the cavernous space. It was still early in the morning by most people’s standards, but Adam had to be at work soon. Dust moats caught in the sunlight coming through the busted out second story windows. K had brought him here to help advise. it was still a few days before the night of and this time Adam was involved in the party’s organization from the beginning.

“I think it’s gonna be a half moon on Friday,” Skov added. On any other day, Skov would still be sleeping, but his djing would be taking center stage on Friday and his opinions needed to be taken into consideration as well. 

They discussed where the best place to put the djing platform would be and where to put the bar. K had ordered a few dozen kegs and a flat pallet of water bottles. But he refused to entertain Noah and Skov’s suggestion of a disco ball. The decayed pulley system attached to the ceiling could still be rigged with lights. Though they would need an extension cord to hook them up to the generator they were bringing in for the sound system. Not that K’s speakers needed to be plugged in. Skov would only dj on his personal, and according to K’s standards, archaic laptop. This was a well worn argument, one K had solved by dreaming up an entire generator. 

“A sweep wouldn’t hurt, either,” Adam said, watching Noah pinwheeling with his arms outstretched in the middle of the floor, his feet narrowly missing both rusty washers and a collection of deceased beetles. The detritus did not limit itself to the corners of the room but picked up and roamed the echoing space. Adam poked his toe at a tumble-weed of gnarly proportions.

K shrugged. “If I supply the broom, would you do the honors?”

Adam considered. That was a good amount of work, but it wouldn’t be hard or difficult. Not like stringing up lights. “Only if you’re still bribing everyone with Waffle House after.”

Kavinsky threw him a glib smirk, which Adam took to mean he would be making them ‘twist his arm’ but they would totally be going. Adam was vaguely aware that Skov and Noah had started spinning, their hands locked, leaning away from each other, and picking up speed.

“The real question,” K started, stepping closer. He didn’t lower his voice. He didn’t need to Skov and Noah were shouting and giggling so loud. “If I paid myself to dream up party materials, could I get a little leeway on the drain?”

“What’s wrong with Party Mart?”

“What I have in mind is a little more lively than a _Cars_ themed piñata.” K scoffed. “Although, if I filled it with favors, I doubt anyone would care.”

“What _do_ you have in mind?” Adam asked. K still had the speakers from the Fourth, and while normally he would have just preferred to dream up a new set with improvements, that would not be in accordance to their arrangement. So it wasn’t that and K wouldn’t ask permission to take out his party favors. Joey K had been holding substance parties to sell his drugs for three years now, he knew how much he could sell in an evening like this coming Friday; how many orders already existed.

“A one of a kind black light,” K smiled. 

“Are we going to have to hang it?”

“I wouldn’t worry about that.”

 

 

 

 

 

Adam didn’t mind the setting up aspect of the rave. He had given the place a thorough sweep as the others attempted to wrangle the huge speakers and set up the bar and Skov’s dj booth. It was a change of pace from what they normally did on a Friday night and Kavinsky was interested in his ideas for possible improvements on their past methods, after the layout for the Fourth had worked so well. It was the attending of the party that he was less enthused about.

The night started out with the pack waking up from a strategically placed afternoon nap and heading over to the factory around nine o’clock. Adam walked a final check around the whole of the room to make sure there weren’t any safety hazards and everything was in place. It all was. Congregating near the ceiling was a writhing mass of fireflies. They were casting a purple glow on all below them. Kavinsky bought a thousand one dollar blacklight fireflies from himself with Adam’s permission. They certainly wasn't the type of thing they sold at the Party Mart.

The Sunday before he and K had sat on the floor of K’s bedroom as he dreamt fifty sleeping in a box, then a hundred, then two before Adam could feel a flux in the line. They spaced the rest out over the course of the day, leaving a couple hours between each of the remaining boxes. K had woken them all less than a half hour before, by removing the lids of the boxes in the factory. When Adam asked if K wasn’t worried the people coming to the rave might wonder what they were, he had only shrugged and said they’re all gonna be having a rad trip.

Adam had done a full circuit of the factory, when K caught his elbow from a dark alcove, “You ready for this?”

“Is this something I really need to prepare for?”

“Of course,” Kavinsky said with a winning smile. “And I can tell you’re not ready.”

“Oh?”

“I got you covered, babe,” K said and grabbed Adam’s hand. He set something small in his palm and closed his fingers around it. “Put it in.”

Adam examined K’s offering of a solitary ear neon green plug before folding it in on itself and wedging it in his good ear. He felt it expand and muffle the sounds of partiers coming in, and Skov’s sound tests.

“Don’t feel the need to shout at any of us,” K said at a lower than normal volume. Adam shouldn’t have been able to hear him at all, but he did. He wheeled around. There was a group of people not far from them talking but Adam couldn't hear a thing what they were saying. Further out someone was shouting something up at Skov, but Adam couldn’t hear it at all. He turned back to K.

“Just with the pack?” 

K made a finger gun and pointed it at Adam before melting back into the shadows. 

 

 

 

 

 

For the better part of the evening, Adam and Jiang had been chain-smoking off the ledge of docking bay seven when Swan wandered over.

“How are you off the dance floor?” Jiang asked him. Swan was typing out something on his phone hardly bothering to look where he was going after he had set himself in their general direction. 

“Ryang wanted to know what I was up to,” he said, still absorbed with the text on the screen.

Jiang hummed. “I hope he appreciates the things you do for him.”

“I think so,” Swan said with a smile. “Besides, it was just one song.” 

As if on telepathic command, Skov began spinning in a new pulsing baseline.

“Up and at ‘em, Parrish,” Swan said holding out a hand to Adam. 

“Huh?”

“We’re gonna take a spin. I want to see what kind of moves you got.”

Despite himself, Adam found his hand in Swan’s and he was hoisted to his feet. Swan’s excited hiss of ‘Yessssssss’ at this should have set off some warning bells in Adam’s mind as Swan all but dragged Adam to the center of the dance floor. Adam was immensely glad he’d left the ear plug in. K’s dream speakers were almost bone rattling. He could feel the waves of sound rolling past his ankles every time he moved. It made him want to leave immediately. But Swan’s smile was genuinely infectious and Adam couldn't help but remain on the dance floor.

“Follow my lead,” Swan urged.

He started to move. Adam had never given much thought to dancing before. He had never gone to one of the dances his middle school had held and Ag didn't hold any. Space as for recreational dancing were also zilch in Henrietta and he had never made friends with anyone who drove up to DC for the weekend to party at the clubs there. Those were the same set of people who went to Kavinsky’s parties and bought Kavinsky’s fake IDs. Never a crowd Adam had run with before. He had never made the time.

Adam attempted to emulate Swan’s ease of movement.

“No, no,” Swan said. “You gotta _feel_ it, Ivy.”

Swan’s hands caught on his hips, pulling him closer, and then guiding him into a more natural move than what Adam had been trying. Swan took his hands back and observed Adam on his own again.

“You don't have too bad rhythm,” Swan noted after a song. Adam felt like he was doing quite poorly and was sure his face expressed as much. “For a beginner, I mean,” Swan elaborated with a devious smirk. “You still got a lot to learn.” 

Swan then threw down some genuinely impressive moves that Adam, not only didn’t know the names of, but he had never seen before. The thing was Swan knew he was good but his love of the limelight made him fearless. 

After a few more songs, Swan leaned into him to say, “I making you a mix tape.”

“I don't have an iPod.”

“You have a phone,” Swan laughed. “I am getting you into this funky trap shit.”

 

 

 

 

 

Adam collapsed against the wall Swan had pushed him towards when they stepped off the floor together. He had lost count of how many songs they had been on the floor for. The way Skov would blend them together was an extra level of deception even if he had been paying attention. But when even Swan needed a break for water, Adam suspected they had been out there for a while.

“Don’t I know you?” a voice next him shouted. 

Having only spoken to the pack all night, and with K’s special ear plug filtering their voices at a normal volume, Adam was startled by how he could just barely make out the words of the girl leaning on the wall next to him. She did look familiar though.

Adam looked at her closer. 

It was with an odd pang he realized she probably thought he looked familiar because _he_ knew who she was. They had gone to elementary and middle school together. Her name was Allison.

Adam said as much.

“I can't hear you!” Allison shouted, because it was definitely her. 

Adam repeated himself, slightly louder this time, but she shook her head again. Allison glanced around and then grabbed his arm and pulled him to one of the square openings in the side of the building. The loading bay was about four feet up from a set of train tracks outside and the quiet night was deafening. The warm summer breeze felt nice against his sweat damp tank top. Adam arranged them so his good ear was turned out and looked at her again. She was prettier than the last time he had seen her, which was unsurprising given it had been three years ago.

“I do know you,” she said with that still puzzled air. Adam knew she wouldn't figure it out. They had never run in the same circles. She was a part of the small relatively well off Henrietta crowd, their parents were administers at Ag or proprietors of long established, successful businesses. Those kids mostly stuck together. In other words, she had been out of his league and had known it. She would never be able to place him and probably had never even known his name. Adam couldn't even remember a time they had spoken.

“I go to Aglionby,” Adam said instead. It wasn't a lie.

“I knew that,” she said with a smile. “I saw you dancing with that black boy. He goes there too.”

Adam didn’t say anything.

“I don’t know you from school,” she stated leaning back against the beam of the bay. “So I must have seen you at one of these before.”

“This is the first one of these I've been to actually.”

She gave him a coy look that said she didn’t believe him. 

He shrugged.

“Do you come to the Tastee-Freez often?” she asked. Her parents owned the chain’s franchises in Virginia. He’d heard rumors she worked the front counter after school a couple days a week.

Adam was about to say he stopped in from time to time, when Kavinsky emerged from the swarm of the dance floor.

“You two aren’t bored?” K asked, stepping into Allison’s space, propping his arm above her head.

“I’d be doing better if I could have a happy pill,” Allison admitted.

“Sure, princess,” K said, pulling a white smily pill out of his pocket. He held it out in front of her. “Open up.”

She did as he asked and K dropped it on her waiting tongue. Then he guided her back in the direction of the dancing throng. K turned back to Adam.

“You know her?” Adam asked. 

“Nope,” K said. 

Adam was about to ask what that was about then, when Kavinsky reached out and drew a finger along the top of Adam’s shoulder, through the perspiration standing there. He and Swan really had been dancing a long time and the factory was hot besides. 

“Parrish, have you been dancing?” K asked. He said this with mock scandal, as if Adam _dancing_ was the most shocking thing, not _Kavinsky_ touching _Adam’s sweat_. He hadn’t even wiped it off his finger. K just switched the hand he held his red solo cup in.

“Swan was giving me some pointers,” Adam allowed. 

“Talented man, our Swan.”

“And you?” Adam asked. He hadn’t seen K all night.

“You know. I’ve been circulating,” K said, clearly a euphemism for selling his drugs.

“I saw Rasmussen,” Adam said. Rasmussen was unmistakable, a big, freckled boy with literal orange hair. Adam had caught a glimpse of him dancing with Proko. Proko was fluidly seductive but Rasmussen employed enthusiastic jazz hand type dance moves, which made Adam feel better about his own skill level. 

“Yeah.”

“Heard he was gonna be up at New Haven.”

“You heard right.”

“What’s he driving all the way down here for?”

“I don’t sell and tell, Ivy.”

Adam was unimpressed. Who exactly did Kavinsky think he was going to tell?

“Don’t give me that look,” K said. “What he gets is custom. I only dream it for him. Just how he likes it.”

“You do that with a lot of your clients?” Adam asked thinking of the pink box of cigarettes in his back pocket.

K scrunched up his nose and shook his head briefly. “Just for my people. I can’t get too creative with anyone who doesn’t know. I forge the rest based off of the standard trip for E, speed, coka, et cetera et cetera with some improvements of course—what?” K asked cutting himself off.

Sometime near the beginning of K’s explanation, Adam became aware that one of the blacklight fireflies was crawling through K’s hair. Kavinsky hadn’t seemed to notice. “You have a firefly in your hair.”

“I’m being festive.”

“It’s there on purpose?” Adam asked eyebrows raised.

K reached up and carefully sifted his fingers through the hair where the firefly was, it came out easily on the knuckles of his hand and K held it out between them; tame, friendly, and not at all skittish.

“Your typical adult firefly has a pretty short life. I made those,” he pointing up at the swarm above the dance floor. “To follow a regular lifespan. They’ll be dead in a couple days. This one and—hate to be the one to break this to you—that one,” he said pointed to Adam’s tank, grinning wildly. “Will live a bit longer.”

“There’s- you-” Adam cut himself off, looking down at his tank top. Indeed there was a blacklight firefly clinging rather primly to him. “...why?”

K shrugged. “They’re fun.”

Adam was going to correct him saying that was not what he meant and ask why the second of the pair had chosen to roost on him of all people, but Jiang appeared next to them out of the mass of bodies and ether.

“Hey, babe,” K greeted.

“Swan wanted me to give you these,” Jiang said, shoving two bottles of water at them. 

“Where is Swan?” Adam asked.

“You’ll never guess who showed up,” Jiang said by way of answer.

“This is Swan we’re talking about,” K said, glancing at Adam. “So I’m guessing Ryang.”

“Yep.”

“I thought he was in Uruguay,” K said. “That tennis thing he wouldn’t shut up about.”

“It was Bogota. Apparently,” Jiang said. “And I guess it was cut short on the relief portion of the trip. Half their team caught some weird flu thing and he just came back with the rest of them.”

“Well, we’re never gonna see Swan again,” K said. “Why are you even in here? Giving Ryang a personal tour?”

“Ha ha, no,” Jiang said. “You weren’t answering Proko, so he texted me. Something about reminding you to keep circulating.”

“Isn’t this my party?” K asked, peeved.

“Your party?” Adam asked. “I’d say ‘our party.’ This was a communal effort.”

“You just want to get rid of me so you and Jiang can go out for a smoke break,” K said looking at them slyly. 

“You know us too well,” Jiang said, bumping shoulders with Adam.

 

 

 

 

 

The party lasted into the wee hours, but even after it broke up the pack still stayed out. Minus Swan who was ostensibly with Ryang. None of them had gotten any sleep when Adam had finally left them that morning. It hadn't mattered to the pack, because they could go to sleep as soon as they got home. But Adam needed to be at work. He carefully handed the firefly, who had clung to him for the rest of the night, back to K, and drove to the warehouse. His day passed very, very, very slowly.The forty-six minute nap he’d taken during lunch had been nearly useless, but Adam didn’t even want to think about the kind of shape he’d be in if he hadn’t snagged it. During the final hour, he wondered if he might be dying. 

More from reflex than any real intention of socializing, Adam drove back to Kavinsky’s. Stepping inside he was torn between hunger and drop dead exhaustion, but the smell of eggs and hash-browns wafting from the kitchen ultimately decided for him.

It was apparently breakfast for the rest of the pack. Skov was at the stovetop, Proko was already through most of an omelette, and Jiang didn’t even look up when Adam walked in. He was, silent over his black coffee, not a morning person.

“Oh, man,” Skov said glancing up from his work, spatula in hand. “You look hungover too!”

“Fuck. You,” Adam all but sobbed as he collapsed into the bar stool. He was too tired to pretend otherwise and had slumped down with his head in his arms; a poor cushion against the hard granite tabletop.

“You can’t talk to me like that and expect I’m not gonna spit in your omelette,” Skov told him cheerily. 

Adam groaned. 

“Poor, Ivy,” Proko said, after he’d finished chewing his final bite. They were silent save for the sounds of Skov cooking. He dished someone up an omelette and began making another.

“What does the dying man want in his breakfast?” Skov asked him minutes later.

“What do you have?”

Skov listed off the items Adam had seen strewn about the counters and island.

“No red peppers,” Adam said.

“Ooop,” Skov said. “I guess this one’s mine then.”

“Parrrrrrrish!” Adam heard K say as he came into the kitchen. “I was wondering if you would be joining us.”

“I don't think he is,” Skov said. 

“Ivy’s not doing well?” K asked. Adam heard Skov flip the omelette, but he was more aware of Kavinsky moving into his personal space. “He'll have an omelette though. Won't ya?” K asked, both of his hands gripping Adam's shoulders and squeezing twice, trying to elicit some response from Adam's exhausted form. 

Adam hummed an affirmative noise.

“Wow, you are _tense_ ,” K said, squeezing Adam's shoulders again. 

Adam twitched.

“He’s like the terminator. You've got steel cables or some shit under your skin?” Kavinsky asked, kneading into him. It was not the faux deep tissue massages boys like to inflict on their friends to see them squirm and yell uncle, but firm and, oddly, _gentle_. It felt good. It felt so good Adam couldn’t think. “You mind?”

Adam was barely registering what K was saying. His hands felt wonderful on Adam; a weird, restorative pain.

“Hey,” K said, his hands stopping and voice much closer. Adam came back to himself. He cracked an eye. K was leaning down on the side of his good ear, watching him intently. “Adam?”

“Keep going,” Adam said, holding K’s gaze.

“Alright,” K said, starting to massage his shoulders again.  _Kavinsky giving him a back massage,_ Adam didn’t even have the strength to laugh. “You got his food going yet?”

“Next up,” Skov said. “You know he doesn’t like bell peppers?”

K’s thumbs were working on loosening up his trapezius. Adam breathed deeply. 

“Yeah,” K said sounding untroubled and then to Adam again, “Hey, don’t fall asleep.”

“Can’t,” Adam said. “Too hungry.”

After working a particular stubborn knot out of the base of Adam’s neck, K paused; hands just resting on Adam’s shoulders.

“Don’t stop,” Adam said voice low under the sizzling of eggs, butter, and potato cubes.

“Wasn’t planning on it, babe.”

 

 

 

 

 

It took a few weeks for Persephone to officially block off an afternoon for Adam and K’s sessions. Because it was Adam _and_ Kavinsky. She was mentoring both of them now. 

One time early on, Adam had been coming straight from work, and to save time, Kavinsky said he would pick Persephone up from Fox Way and they would meet him at Cabeswater. Persephone had liked the plan and Adam arrived to find them in an animated discussion of eastern European spirits on a park bench. Kavinsky by iniquity of his parents had traffic in traditional national liquors, and Persephone, apparently not seeming to care that K was obviously under age, urged him to try Vana Tallinn if he ever got the chance.

Adam was unsurprised that she had found a use in his ability. What was surprising though was the fact that they had become something not unlike friends. K had begun calling her Seph, a nickname he used so often that Adam had started thinking of her as such. And she was one of only two people Adam had ever heard call K by his given name. At school he was Mr. Kavinsky to the teachers. The other kids called him Kavinsky or Joey K, never Joey. The pack nearly exclusively called him K. To Radina, he was Joey. But as for people who interacted with him regularly no one ever called him Joseph. 

It made Adam want to try.

 

 

 

 

 

“I just hate it when my guests aren't having a good time,” K said, observing him from the door.

Adam raised his eyebrows at the word choice. “I never said I wasn’t.”

“Escaping to the hallway?” K asked, twirling a joint across his fingers and settling against the wall opposite. “Sure, Ivy.”

Escape wasn’t the right word. Swan didn’t smoke and, following K’s lead, Adam never smoked in the theater room out of what was likely consideration to him. Adam liked smoking K’s cigarettes more than he knew he should. He also liked having K’s unfettered attention on him more then he knew he should. It was intoxicating. Almost as if his very presence was a drug in itself. Adam’s experience with substances was admittedly small. Still, he didn’t really think there was a drug that could make him feel quite like he did when he was with K. There was that strange humming in his veins that had nothing to do with what either of them were smoking. He never felt like _this_ on his smoke breaks at work. And Adam wasn’t familiar with the emotion that seemed to settle in his gut when K was leaning on the wall across from him. It seemed like ... _contentment?_

“This _is_ enjoyable, I just—It’s weird. I don't usually waste time like this,” Adam admitted.

“You'd enjoy it more if you didn't think of relaxation as a waste of time,” K pointed out. “And ...what do they say?” His face morphed in thought, and then he continued with, “Shift your paradigm to include it as a part of a thriving mental health routine.”

Adam stared for two seconds before bursting out in shocked laughter.

K smirked.

“I didn't know you secretly aspired to be a psychologist.”

“Fuck no, not me,” K said, lighting the joint. “You’ve seen that psych prof they’ve got us at Ag? That bitch has a stick so far up his ass, it’s a wonder he can sit down without splitting his brain in two.”

“Wouldn’t know,” Adam said, lips quirking at the corners. “Never had him.”

“Lucky you,” K snorted. “But I'm serious. Relax.”

“I know how to relax,” Adam said with no undue amount of irony as he took out one of the Hello Kitty cigarettes and lit up.

“Do you?” K said thoughtful. “Then I'd say you should loosen up some all the time, but then you'd tell me ‘I don't know what I'm talking about. I don't know what it's like...’” K trailed off in an affected voice. 

Adam stared at him, expression decidedly neutral. 

“And maybe I don’t,” Kavinsky continued, waving the joint lazily between them. “But you _could_ lighten up. A little fun won't kill your chances.”

“...No,” Adam agreed. K’s lips quirked up. He was right, after all. Adam was at the top of the class in every class he was in save Latin. He would still be top too, even if he did slide a smidge. The Vancouver boys were on his tail, but Adam had a good margin on them. Or at least he did last year. “But it's never just a little with you, is it?”

K inclined his head, acknowledging the point. 

“Besides,” Adam continued. “I could say you should buckle down instead.”

Kavinsky’s smirk went predatory at this. “How ‘bout another deal then?”

Adam shrugged. _Depends._

“I'll pick up what you put down,” K suggested.

Adam let out a sardonic snort.

“’m serious,” K protested.

Adam blinked at him. 

K raised his eyebrows in an ‘oh you don’t think I can?’ look.

It wasn’t so much that Adam didn’t think K could do it. More that K was smart, but he didn’t gain his knowledge through a stack of books. He was street smart. He’d rather get out there and try the thing, rather than read about it. Hell, K would probably advocate time travel as the best way to learn about history. 

An even stranger alternative reality began unspooling itself in Adam’s mind. Of K bent over the kitchen island a bowl of cereal and half-way through reading some assigned lit book. Of his Russian tests, actually studied for and not winged off the drift he caught with his Bulgarian.

And what would Adam be doing? Sitting next to him smoking? Reading the _Harry Potter_ books at Skov’s behest? It was ridiculous.

K leaned back having apparently come to the same conclusion as Adam, “You won't do it though.”

Adam wouldn’t. As entertaining as that might be, Adam couldn't chance it. He shook his head in agreement.

“Too bad, I kind of wanted to try on being a bookworm,” K said, watching Adam take a drag. “Here, swap you.”

“Why?”

“I need a little sweetness in my life, and you,” Kavinsky said stepping closer, “Need a buzz.”

“I don't need a buzz.”

“Sure,” he said, unfazed. “Hold this anyway.”

Adam traded his cigarette for K’s joint.

Sweet was not the first word that came to Adam’s mind to describe either the cardamon or tobacco of the dream cigarette. Still, Adam couldn't help but think that was a metaphor for more than their smoking. Did Kavinsky think he was sweet? Even the mere possibility of having K think of him like that made something roil in Adam. He wasn’t sweet. He didn’t know why it bothered him if K thought he was, but Adam took a long hit of K's joint to abate the urge to break something that was suddenly too strong.

K didn't say anything, but the crinkles at the corners of his eyes told Adam he was amused.

Adam stared, certain Kavinsky knew exactly what he was thinking. K stared back. He could feel the slight buzz he'd get off that one hit settling over him.

K was hovering just inside the edge of Adam’s space. Adam was staring at the flecks of amber in K’s eyes. The way they were catching the soft light of the hallway. Adam started. K’s eyes were unbelievably on his lips.

K, leaned even closer, bringing his hand up, and slipped Adam’s cigarette, back between his lips.

“You are such a dick,” Adam whispered, holding K’s joint up between them.

“I try,” K said his voice just as hushed. He took the joint, taking a long pull and heading back to the movie room; before tossing over his shoulder, “Come back to the party, babe.”

It took Adam a moment to push himself off the wall. For a second there, he could have sworn K was about to kiss him.

 

 

 

 

 

Adam hadn’t been angry in weeks.

But what few Sundays Adam spent at Monmouth or with Gansey and the other’s in Cabeswater were a stilted affair and certainly tried his patience. More often then not, he felt like a trespasser in a space which they had previously thought was their’s together. These were his friends, but everything had changed. 

Perhaps it was only that they had all known him before this deal with Cabeswater. They had expectations for who he was—what he was— but Adam didn’t feel as he had before last April. His connection with the forest had altered something essential in him. He felt different. 

Adam was more powerful. But also less human.

Distancing himself from them wasn’t hard. They hardly ever saw each other and when they did he just wanted it to be over. Even if things weren’t awkward, even if he missed them, all Adam had to do was think of the vision from the dreaming tree and he would decide that it was probably a good thing he couldn’t actually spend much time with them.

Adam supposed he and Gansey were civil enough. They hadn’t fought again. So there was that. But they weren’t even talking. The troublesome undercurrent that appeared whenever they were in the same room didn’t go away even as the weeks passed and Adam made up with Blue. 

He and Blue had reached a common ground. Their reconciliation was awkward but mutually felt. Adam couldn’t find it in himself to be bitter about her breaking things off between them—really it was silly for them to have tried anything at all— and Blue, probably not wanting any _more_ discord in the group during the few hours they were all together, had let his own comment slide. 

Privately, Adam wondered how long he was willing to let things with Gansey go on like this. Indefinitely? Drifting away from Gansey had been inevitable—an ignored facet of their relationship that they would cease traveling parallel next year— but he had thought they would _have_ senior year, at least. If they let this go on, they wouldn't even have that. While things had been said, on both sides, it wasn’t irreparable. They could still be friends, Adam hoped. But he wasn't taking the first step here.

K and Cabeswater and work and the pack kept him busy during the days and most nights, but sometimes when he couldn’t sleep lying in his bed at St. Agnes, Adam would think of things he wanted to share with Gansey, who’s insomniac tendencies meant he would be up too. But he and Gansey weren't talking, so he kept it to himself. Even after he'd calmed down. And he would spend a good portion of the night wondering if he were somehow misreading the whole situation. 

Perhaps he was just being stubborn, but Adam didn't think so. The fact that Gansey hadn't apologized yet implied he meant what he said. And that just rang as a fundamental lack of respect of everything Adam was and was trying to be.

Adam wouldn’t —he couldn’t— pretend like what Gansey had said to him hadn’t hurt. He had tried to pretend like it didn’t matter, like he’d gotten over it that day when he met Aurora. But he hadn’t gotten over it and it did matter. If he knew Gansey at all, he probably felt wretched about what he had said. 

But Gansey _knew_ why Adam was doing this. He knew what was on the line and _still_ —Adam wasn’t going to hold his fucking hand and drag him to a place where he could apologize.

That was on Gansey. 

It hurt. He wanted to fix it. But he wouldn't take the first step.

There had been a time in the past when Adam thought he might have taken it anyway, if it were just his actions distancing them. But that wasn’t the case any more.

 

 

 

 

 

Henrietta filling back up with Ag boys as summer came to a close was always something Adam had to get used to. They would start to trickle back into town during the third week in August. The quiet streets would start to fill up with the noise of their fancy cars and the tinkle of bells above shop doors would be accompanied with the laughter of three or four boys too. There was always a certain population of Aglionby who stayed on year round, but this was a small contingent and the en masse return of the Ag boys was never anything short of a flood.

For Kavinsky and his pack, this meant they would bump up the number of their substance parties, the races, and general shenanigans. That clear starry Thursday night saw them kicking off the evening with a highway race.

Somewhere outside Henrietta, Kavinsky’s Evo was the nexus of activity in the scenic lookout parking lot. Skov was sitting on the hood hunched over his laptop, taking names, and setting up the races. Jiang was a few cars down in his supra taking bets. Adam was just leaning on the hood of the Evo observing the activity.

This was where a bunch of townies and a few of the other Ag boys who had gotten back to Henrietta early were watching from and waiting for they chance to race. Beyond the pack none of these people were particularly friendly with Kavinsky. They were in their own circles; ones which occasionally overlapped with K's for drugs or parties or races or all three.

“You don't want to race tonight, do you?” K asked Adam when he circled back around from the starting line. 

Adam shook his head, “I'm good.”

“Skov will put you in the line up if you change your mind,” K said. 

“For sure, Ivy,” Skov said. 

“In the mean time,” K said, ducking into the mitsu and pulling out a small stylized control panel. “Let’s give you something to do so people won’t fucking bother you.”

K settled back between Skov and him, sitting close enough to give Adam a good view of what he was doing. He flicked the protective covering off an abnormally large mechanical dragonfly.

“This little guy will be capturing the race live and I’ve got it rigged to transmit the footage to that projector over there.”

Proko and Swan had spent the better part of an hour trying to raise the white sheet the race would be projected on before they were successful.

“Now you don’t actually need to _pilot_ the drone,” K said demonstrating the joystick with the counter-intuition of flight control and the various toggles which controlled the angle of the lens. “Because when you press this button,” K pointed demonstratively. “It’ll just lock on the cluster of cars automatically. Of course turn the autopilot off if there’s a crash and you want to go back and show all the gory details.”

“That happen often?”

“Sadly no.”

“Exactly how high were you when you dreamed this?” Adam asked, watching the dragonfly swoop low and snatch at Skov’s beanie at K’s behest.

“Pretty dang high,” K admitted, after a moment of serious consideration. “I dreamed up this bag of little green amphetamines and I took one every time I went back. Which was a few times. It took a few tries to get it to really work, but then when we tested it out, I realized I needed to add some features.”

K handed the control panel over to him. 

“Go ahead and play around with it a bit before the first race.”

 

 

 

 

 

Adam hunched over, watching the first race of the night, which was between Proko and some preppy townie, when a peel of raucous laughter pulled his attention away from the tiny screen. 

“Ah yes,” Skov said under his breath. “This guy is _such_ an asshole.”

Adam didn't really know much about the laughing Ag student approaching the Evo, other than Peugeot was a year younger than them and he must have had a pretty shitty summer if he wasn’t waiting until the last possible moment before returning to Henrietta. Adam supposed it might have something to do with the group of guys who were clustered around him. Adam wasn’t convinced friends did much to make Henrietta more palatable, but to each their own. 

Peugeot stepped up to Skov and put his name down. Skov took his number and said he would text Peugeot when they were ready for his heat.

“So this is where the straight laced come to let it go,” Peugeot asked, acknowledging Adam for the first time. “Since when you smoke, trailer trash?” Peugeot demanded. “Did you have to steal your mom's Virginia Slims just to act all bad?”

“Don't insult my work, Peugeot,” K said, appearing from no where with a fist buried in Skov’s collar. “Those cigarettes are mine.”

“Oh yeah?” Peugeot asked, his posture shifting, “And is trailer trash your’s now too?”

“No.”

“What’s he doing here then? Bored of being a goody two shoes?” Peugeot asked. “Ready to show the world your true colors?” Eyes glinting at Adam before he turned back to K, he asked, “You realize he's a gold digger right?”

“Are you trying to tell me he doesn't want me for my fast car and big dick?” Kavinsky asked, all mock incredulity and raised eyebrows. 

“What happened to you going after Lynch?”

“He’s a fucking cunt.”

Peugeot made a ‘you said it, not me’ gesture, smile wide and nasty, before he said, “More like he’s so far up Gansey’s ass there was no way you could pull him out not covered in shit—Speaking of how'd you get Parrish here to climb off of Gansey's dick to come suck yours?”

“He look like he’s sucking my dick?”

“He’s doing your drugs,” Peugeot said.

“That’s cause he's with us now,” K said blithely. “So shut the fuck up.”

“He's _with_ you?” Peugeot asked. The stress he put on the word seemed to denote a secret meaning that Adam didn't catch.

K was silent behind his shades, but his grip on Skov tightened. Adam realized he was holding him back.

“Prove it then,” Peugeot demanded.

“My fist in your face gonna be enough to prove it?” Skov demanded. 

The tilt of K’s head said maybe.

“He's not  _with_ you,” Peugeot derived from K’s silence at this demand.

“You got a hearing problem, man?” Swan asked, from Adam’s other elbow.

“You got a thinking problem?” Peugeot returned. “You’re gonna let _him_ run with you?”

“He already _does_ run with us,” K said, lazy and _provoking_.

“I can’t help but think you are settling, and for this uppity parasite, no less...”

Adam cared what his classmate’s thought of him, but only after a certain extent. Obviously, Adam _was_ a social climber. He’d heard all the comments about gold-digging and parasite before; a hazard of his friendship with Gansey and Ag’s rather classist student body.

What he wouldn’t stand for was people thinking he was some kind of kept boy. He’d told Gansey time and again he wouldn’t be his monkey. Gansey liked to brush this off; if people really thought that, they were stupid and not worth Adam’s time. 

What Gansey didn’t seem to understand was that wasn’t a role he could shrug off or grow out of. Once people thought of Adam as Gansey’s — _Gansey’s project_ — he would _always_ be Gansey’s. Gansey would be the one to have made him, like some charitable donation which built a new wing on the Ag library and would for the rest of the school’s history carry the name of its benefactor above it. Adam would rather remain unbuilt than suffer that.

“You want to say that again?” K's voice had changed. There was a dangerous edge to it.

Peugeot either didn't hear the change or didn't care, because he said, “I said I wouldn't want to take in a dog like that. He probably has fleas.”

Despite dropping his hand from Skov’s collar, it was K who closed the distance first. Kavinsky who threw the first punch, square in Peugeot’s face, with Skov right on his heels and Swan coming in from the side. Adam wasn’t sure how much of what happened next was motivated in his defense and how much was just their itching for a fight after a rather mellow summer, but Adam didn’t think he would ever forget the sight of Kavinsky and his pack starting a fight over something some dumbass said about _Adam Parrish_.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like given how long this is I should say something more ... _profound_ , but I just finished editing it and tbqh I got nothing beyond: well, gee, this took a long time lol. You all should have heard me on tumblr, I was like 'oh I'm gonna try and get it done in two months...ok three...ok by my bday...ok Friday the 13th that's the day.' pffff. Anyway, it's like super long, so little wonder...
> 
> I hope you enjoy and would loooooooove to know what you think!!!


	3. part iii: hall light wishes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes, this part is really long. For your reading convenience, I have divided it up into three acts, that are as close to even as the scenes allow.

 

 

 

 

 

act i  
fall + fixture just the same thing

 

 

 

 

 

While the others were still trying to set Skov’s nose, Adam left the confusion of the restroom behind and stepped outside with a stack of paper towels and a now full water bottle. The nights were still warm. He could see the over-excited bugs flying, landing, and taking off again under the yellow parking lot lights of the Taco Bell. 

Kavinsky sat on the hood of his Evo where they had left him. Adam waited for a green sedan to pull in line for the drive through before crossing the parking lot.

“You don’t want to dream this away?” Adam asked, once he had closed the distance. 

K pushed his shades into his hair, revealing a burgeoning black eye and a wicked cut that went through the eyebrow opposite. The blood had clotted messily. Adam was surprised that K hadn’t tried to get him to clear it. Compared to healing a bone, this should have been easier. Kavinsky certainly would have dreamed better first aide than what Adam could do with neosporin and a bandaid printed with pink elephants salvaged from the glove compartment of K’s car. The line taking a drain for first aide seemed prudent enough. Hell, K could have easily gone into the Taco Bell restroom and cleaned the cut himself, but Adam felt more than somewhat responsible.

“People have to believe _I_ beat the shit out of Peugeot, Ivy.”

Adam had no doubt people would. Peugeot had looked like shit when they left. There were enough Ag boys at the race to set the rumor mill of before school even started. Not that anyone would believe the truth of why the fight had happened in the first place. Adam wasn’t sure he believed it himself. 

Adam gestured with the water bottle that K should tilt his head slightly. He squeezed his eye shut against the initial stream Adam poured on the cut, before doubling over as the water ran dirty pink down his face and off, ending in a wet splat on the asphalt. Adam handed K a clean paper towel so he could dry off and then had him tilt his head up again. 

K’s brow, which had been un-furrowed, scrunched up when Adam dabbed gingerly at the cut.

“It started bleeding again,” Adam said, by way of apology.

K shook his head slightly, cracking the lid of his swollen eye to peer up at Adam, other eye squeezed shut; likely against the sharp pain shooting through his optic nerve. 

Adam had K staunch the cut with a fresh paper towel as he ripped the wrapping off the bandaid and dabbed a bit of neosporin on the bandage portion. 

“Alright,” Adam said, and K took the paper towel away. His eyes closed again when Adam tilted K’s face back with a hand. With a needlessly careful exactitude, Adam placed the bandaid over the cut, his other hand keeping K’s head in place. 

He surveyed their work, partially aware of his fingers still in K’s hair, but most of his brain was preoccupied with the question of _why?_ Why had K done that? Why was he doing any of this? Adam just didn’t get it. He had the pieces in front of him, but what they added up to didn’t make sense. Staring at K’s face wasn’t going to give him the answers, but something weak inside Adam let his thumb rest on K’s temple longer then necessary. One beat, two beats, three. 

Kavinsky opened his eyes. 

Adam dropped his hand and crumpled up the bandaid wrapper. K was looking at him, really looking. His eyes had caught on something in Adam; a hook inside a fish’s mouth. Adam was caught, but at what exactly he didn’t know. K’s inscrutable expression gave hints of understanding though. They should go inside, Jiang had mentioned buying everyone a round of Crunchwraps. They were probably done with Skov’s nose by now. 

He took another step back, turning, but K snatched his wrist. Cool fingers, that had an hour before started a fight for some nebulous reason—surely not Adam’s honor—circled the delicate bones there. Adam turned back, meeting K’s eye again. K didn’t let go of him and Adam stepped back between K’s legs. Closer once again, but not too close.

Adam didn’t glance back at the old pickup that rumbled through the parking lot to the drive thru behind him.

“Not gonna give me hell for settling that with a couple punches?” K asked.

Peugeot had been all but asking for it. Adam couldn’t spare any sympathy for someone rude and stupid. Peugeot ticked both boxes, because whatever Adam had seen in his recent admittance to Kavinsky’s inner circle aside, K had a nasty reputation for a reason.

It was well known around campus: you couldn’t start something with one of K’s crew without involving the rest of them. No one could touch any of them without recourses dealt by fists and unusual, and, often when involving Kavinsky, impossible pranks. Not even Swan. It was no secret he could take care of himself, but in a rather infamous fight their freshman year—Swan could have handled it fine, Adam knew—but what started with a racial slur and some homophobic comment had ended with him, Kavinsky, Morris, and Rasmussen taking action that left the asshole and four of his friends in the emergency room. For reasons unexplained, none of the offenders pressed charges, but everyone knew who had taken them down and why. It had gone down in Ag legend and cemented a simple fact about K’s pack: they had each other's backs. 

When he agreed to run with K, Adam hadn't quite realized that would extend to him too.

This was a public thing now. K was really asking if Adam had a problem with their claiming of him. The fight would be seen as an announcement of property changing hands—even if running with was not belonging to and K _had_ said as much, few people would remember that. But the fight was only partially about who’s protection Adam now fell under. Peugeot had been challenging _K’s word_ as much as _Adam’s worthiness_.

Adam shrugged. 

“Good,” K said, letting go of Adam’s wrist. “Because we don't let that kind of shit fly. These Ag fuckers....like if I didn’t cut that off at the head, we’d all be hearing about it come first day of school.”

“We’re gonna hear about it anyway,” Adam said, his skin cold in the night air where K had held it moments before.

“‘Course, but they’ll know exactly where things stand now,” K said. “Besides, you didn’t seem like you were up in arms to do anything about all that shit he was saying...”

“If I had a nickel for every time I should have started a fight ‘cause some asshole called me a name...” Adam trailed off.

“You’d be rich enough to pay Ag’s tuition in full?”

“Tch,” Adam scoffed. “Yeah, maybe.” He looked down at the bloody paper towel he still had in his hand.

“You tell us the next time someone says something like that.”

“Why would you want to know?” Adam asked. He continued studying the paper towel.

“Because,” K said slow and Adam could _hear_ the smile in his voice. “Me and those gossipy fucks’ll have words is all.”

Adam shook his head. He didn’t need that. 

“Well, you’re not gonna do anything about ‘em...” 

“You don’t have to-” Adam started, then stopped. He settled on, “Don’t.”

K scoffed. “I _know_ I don’t have to tell you running with us isn’t just about what we can get out of you.”

Adam shook his head. He hadn’t thought that for a while now. But this wasn’t just between them anymore. He didn’t want the others or K to get hurt in the process of taking some ignorant rich boy to task. Adam wasn’t going to say that though. Instead, he said, “I don’t like hidden clauses.”

“Tough shit,” K said. 

Adam looked at him.

Kavinsky’s face was serious. On this point he would be resolute. K would fight for Adam for his own reasons; be it the reputation of his crew or something else. Something about the intent glint in K’s dark eyes made him think it really was more for _Adam_ than the former. Unbelievable even if most of what Peugeot had been saying was about Adam and the skin around Kavinsky’s eye was stained dark wine and a bruised fruit brown. 

K would have a nice black eye for the first weeks of school.

The first week of school.

The first day of his last year at Aglionby started next Thursday. One week away. Adam could hardly believe this was it. Just one more year and he could leave Henrietta. For good.

Adam had his top schools picked out. He would need to start his college applications in earnest soon. He had already begun the process, but he also needed to find scholarships to help cover the cost of books and more. Though Adam was hoping to be awarded a decent scholarship from the universities he chose. The Ag counselor had put him in contact with several of his top school’s endowment boards. They had responded with appreciation of his interest in the process, but not much about what they looked for in successful applicants beyond what he had found on the colleges’ financial aide websites.

It was strange, but for the first time since Merriell died, Adam wasn’t quite ready for summer to be over just yet.

It was coming to a close all the same. On this last Sunday, he, Gansey, Ronan, and Blue would finally explore the cave in Cabeswater. Adam wasn’t sure what they expected to find down there. For himself, it seemed too easy that the forest would just reveal Glendower’s tomb to them after Adam had helped it for two months. Even Gansey couldn’t really expect to find Glendower down there, as he had already arranged for his mentor Roger Mallory to fly into DC the Saturday of the following week.

“Have you tried that special kind of Mountain Dew they sell here?” Kavinsky asked. 

“Nope,” Adam said easy.

“Jiang can't get enough of it,” K said sliding off the hood. “I’m gonna tell him you’ve never had it before.”

“You’re horrible,” Adam said, shaking his head. Even still he was looking down, hiding his smile.

“You’re gonna like this, Ivy,” K said, smirking and throwing an arm around Adam’s shoulders.

 

 

 

 

 

Adam felt the wind buffet his clothes. It blew through his open fingers and ruffled his hair. He always forgot how cold it could be this high up, even though September was still summer weather in Henrietta. Standing up here in just a tee shirt would go from refreshing to too cold in twenty minutes flat. 

The view however was undeniably gorgeous. The scope of this clifftop was astounding. He could see for miles off, over the sloping valleys and to the far ridges, densely packed with trees. If Persephone hadn’t brought him here, Adam would’ve never had cause to come up himself. Hell, before the summer he wouldn’t have even been able to get this far out of town on his own. And it was a totally different vantage from when they’d gone surveying the land in Helen’s helicopter. Adam preferred the ground beneath his feet. Not that the ground he and Persephone were standing on was _really_ under their feet. 

In fact, the two of them were scrying and their bodies were really laying on the grass next to Kavinsky miles away.

“Have you aligned yourself with the ley line?” Seph asked. 

Adam was waiting for Kavinsky to pull at his conscience. Persephone was there to make sure Adam wasn’t merely waiting.

They had started small. Him and K sitting across from each other—Adam scrying, K asleep—and Kavinsky would reach out to find him. First Adam wouldn't wander far, but as K got better at seeking him out, Adam would allow Cabeswater to lure him further along the line. Now they were practicing the real work: K guiding him back to his body and breaking Adam out of his trance when his body wasn't in Cabeswater. It wasn’t the easiest of tasks.

The problem they were finding was the longer it took K to find him, the harder it was for Adam's mind to take root in his body again. 

“Adam,” Persephone said again.

“Yeah,” Adam said. He was only half listening to her. If he was properly tuned in to Cabeswater, Adam would feel the exact moment when Kavinsky fell asleep and came into the dream world. That was, of course, what Persephone wanted to distract him from. Even if this was practice, it wasn’t prudent for him to stand around waiting for K to find him. That would be a poor preparation for both of them for the real thing. But Adam wasn't sure if he really lost himself, he would even be able to make it back.

The risk was enormous. He loved the magic he could do, but the danger was enough to make him reconsider. Except it wasn’t like he could just stop communicating with Cabeswater. Adam _could_ understand the forest now when he wasn’t scrying, but the depth and complete focus the act gave him was incomparable.

Seph was talking again. “You actually don't need Cabeswater to tell when and where the line needs fixing,” she said in her light distracted voice. “You can suss it out yourself.”

Adam’s mind quirked at that. Then she let the other shoe drop.

“If you've got the right vision. Not everyone has it. Calla doesn't. But she has something else instead. I want to see if you do. It will help you anticipate Cabeswater's needs.”

So that was the real reason why she was up here with him instead of giving pointers to K. Seph wanted to see the parameters of his natural psychic aptitude and this was a great opportunity to take advantage of their time together and help him better understand his connection. Persephone was still vague, but he was becoming less adverse to translating her wisdom into practical advice.

Leaving Kavinsky alone was the other reason. While he was quick to pick up on the concepts Seph wanted to impart, his main difficulty was still liaising with Cabeswater. Letting him muddle through the inevitable interaction he would have with the forest when he entered the dream place was nearly as important as getting him to hone his Adam Parrish radar detector. It was remarkable just how opposite K's relationship with the forest was compared to Ronan’s. Even more astounding was the fact that K could get anything at all from Cabeswater, when it was so set against him.

As Adam had predicted, the forest had not been keen on K's repeated presence during Adam’s missions. Getting it to comprehend the danger Adam was putting himself in had been a feat—in fact, Adam had, in getting the forest to understand him, been dragged out quite deeply. It had been a good thing Persephone had been there grounding him. 

Of course, the forest refused to call an outright truce—it couldn't actually. As so much of Kavinsky’s dream state depended on his own mindset and since K was still taking things on Sundays, the forest refused to concede entirely. It was just as petty as K it seemed. Cabeswater's concession though was to agree to not incite night horrors on K when Adam was scrying.

So that was sorted, or at least as sorted as they were going to get it. 

All things considered, he and Seph hadn't gone far this time, and despite her proceeding with the lesson as usual, Adam still knew the moment K started dreaming about him.

K had to know Adam very well to call him back to him. To Adam’s knowledge, Kavinsky never forged a copy of him while inadvertently trying to seek him out. The part of Adam's brain Gansey would call the paranoid portion knew this could be an excellent opportunity for Kavinsky to prove Gansey and the others right and forge a copy of Adam that had no qualms with K draining the line, while the real Adam lost his mind out on the line. That wasn’t something K would do. Adam knew it with a surety that made him feel guilty for letting the thought even cross his mind in the first place. 

Maybe after the first time Seph had Kavinsky pull him back to his body, the guilt had shown on Adam's face; because when he asked K, quite casually he thought, his plan for making sure he wasn't just dragging out a copy, K had looked at him with narrowed eyes for a second before replying.

“ _Because_ drawing you to me is one hundred percent different from when I am dreaming something from scratch,” K had started, explaining how he differentiated the processes. “I'm not drawing purely from imagination. But taking all my memories, every little contradictory nuance of you, and demanding _Adam Parrish_. The very essence of you.” 

He had said this last bit with such self-satisfaction that Adam couldn't resist poking a bit of fun at him. “My soul?” Adam asked voice full of mirth.

K had made this face; like he was about to object but _couldn't_. “If you like,” K smirked, an echo of Seph's own response to K’s phrasing that first day.

“Is that really how you see it?” Adam asked. 

“Yes,” K said in a chagrined huff, running a hand through his hair. Definitely not looking at Adam.

“My _soul_?” Adam repeated, incredulous.

“Look, I don't know what else to call it,” K said, and his wry roll of the eyes seemed to be directed more at himself than Adam’s incredulity. “ _You_ are _not_ connected unassailably to your body. And _soul_ —” here he made a sort of mystical hand waving quote motion “—is the best word to describe _you_ you.”

But the longer Adam was left out here to wander, or try and sense the next rift in the line, like Seph was having him do now, it was harder to get back. Which was the third reason why Seph was with him. She wasn’t actively grounding him now, but she would step in and reel him back in if he got too far. 

Adam felt a tug at his consciousness.  

_Ivy_.

The tone was playful. Fingertips barely brushing him. Adam could feel K.

Then Kavinsky was plucking at the fibers of his mind, like he was trying to get a hold of his shirt sleeve. He finally caught a handful of Adam and tugged lightly. 

_Poison Ivy_ , Kavinsky said. _Come on back_.

He, unlike Persephone, did not have a physical form out here. Tapped into the line like he was Adam could sense K’s power fusing with it, even if he wasn’t in Cabeswater, and the pull drawing Adam to the dreamer. He felt his particles following K's bidding, coming back to him.

“You need to be receptive to Joseph,” Persephone reminded him.

Adam knew that. He needed to be open to Kavinsky pulling him back and closed to the line pulling him out further.

It was all about wills. If Adam had a death-wish, he could have defied K's call and the line's desire to fulfill it. He could have sought something further, deeper out; thrown his conscious far into the great unknown. Adam liked to think that his will was greater than K's, so if he really wanted to he could have evaded him. 

The idea of putting his life in someone else's hands was not easy. That kind of trust would always be difficult for Adam to give out. But K didn't make it feel like a joke. He didn't lord it over Adam like some child who’d won hide and go seek. Kavinsky was serious, almost solemn, in his retrieval of Adam. Like it was some kind of sacred oath he was bound to repay. It made Adam feel a bit terrible for thinking about it the way he did. He added it to the list and let K tug him back to where their bodies lay.

Persephone was already back to herself by the time Adam could move his fingers and toes. Kavinsky looked like he hadn't moved from his strict observation of Adam, even though he obviously had to have fallen asleep. K was never overly solicitous, after Adam returned from scrying, but he was unobtrusively attentive. 

Adam met K’s eyes. He was glad, if he was going to do this with anyone, it was K.

Persephone assessed K’s work; that was she assessed Adam. “I think that was good,” she said in her light airy voice. 

 

 

 

 

 

“Tomorrow’s the big day, huh?” Proko asked picking up Adam’s backpack and dropping it back down on the coffee table with a loud “Oof!” Adam had brought it over with him so he could actually enjoy movie night without having to worry about getting up early to swing by St. Agnes, instead of heading straight to Monmouth.

“Yep,” Adam said. He was no longer as nervous as he had been when he advised Gansey and the others to let the forest get to know them before they ventured into the cave. Cabeswater had been doing better, particularly with K, he thought. Ever since Adam had explained to the forest Persephone’s plan for Kavinsky, it had been resigned. It still was, but as Adam had become more attuned to reading the emotional minutia of the forest, he could tell it wasn’t quite as begrudging to K’s presence as it had been at the start of the summer. And if it could do better with Kavinsky, then it should be fine with Gansey and the others. 

“You think the magic cave will be holding the magic king?” Skov asked, elbowing Proko out of the way so he could unzip the largest section of the bag. Skov began pulling out all of the equipment Gansey had asked them to bring tomorrow and handing each piece to Noah, who then turned it over before setting it on the table. 

“This is a bit shit,” K said, picking up Adam’s tiny flash light. “How is this gonna light a whole tunnel?

“It’s gonna have to do,” Adam said flatly. Obviously, a beam barely an inch across wasn’t going to help much once they got down there, but it was all Adam had. It was better than nothing. 

When they had finished picking through the rest of Adam’s gear, Kavinsky came back to the flashlight. “The rest of this stuff is decent, but you’ve at least got to have a better light, babe,” K said, shaking his head at it. 

“This will be fine,” Adam said, wishing K would just drop it. 

“What you need is a firefly the size of my fist,” Kavinsky said, curling his hand to demonstrate.

“I’m not gonna be alone down there,” Adam pointed out. “The others will have flashlights too.”

“They’ll have lights too. Wo-hoo,” K said, waving his hands in a mockery of celebration. “ _So?_ I’m thinking ‘bout you. What if you get separated?”

“I’ll be fine,” Adam said.

“But, I mean, just think of the advantages,” K said, expression back to pondering and eyes fixed somewhere on the ceiling. “It would be able to fly above you—illuminating the whole of the tunnel. _And_ it could even fly ahead and reveal what was coming up on the path...”

“I don’t need a giant firefly,” Adam said, and then revised. “I don’t _want_ a giant firefly.”

“Safety first, Parrish!” Kavinsky crowed, bracing his hands on his hips. 

“K-”

“Fine,” K relented. “At least, let me grab you a pair of fresh batteries?”

Adam opened his mouth to say he was fine again, but then he met K’s eyes. 

“...We just want you safe, man.”

“Yeah,” Adam said after a moment. “Alright, go ahead and switch them out.”

“Cool,” K said, unscrewing the back end of the flashlight and knocking the old batteries into his hand, checking their size.

Adam didn’t move till K had darted from the room and he could hear the sound of him bounding up the stairs, having a distinct feeling the new batteries would never run out of juice. When he turned around, Swan caught his eye. There was something light in Swan’s expression—something _knowing_. 

Adam shrugged. 

Swan gave a half shrug in response.

Adam went over taking the other end of Swan’s couch and promptly got a pair feet in his lap for the trouble.

 

 

 

 

 

Adam was zoning out, staring mindlessly into the white light of the cold, deliciously cold fridge. It was late and he may or may not have been coming up against his daily threshold for exhaustion.

“I still don’t like unhappy guests, Ivy,” K said from the darkness of the doorway, startling him. Adam straightened and let the fridge door swing shut, leaving them in darkness save the light spilling from the open basement door. Kavinsky was standing beside him now. It seemed the temperature in the room had ratcheted up twenty degrees, a feat which could not be explained merely by the closed fridge door.

“After two months,” Adam said. It felt like it had been so much longer. “I’m really still a guest?”

“You still leave every Sunday,” K shrugged. “So yeah.”

“Are we not allowed to have other friends? Is that a rule? Because I don't think Swan got that with Ryang or all those times Skov took Travis out to the lot behind the Piggly Wiggly to start a fake fight club.” 

“Heard about that, did you?” Kavinsky asked, with a chagrinned laugh.

“Everybody _heard_ about that,” Adam scoffed.

K watched him considering. Adam could practically hear him repeating his own words back to himself. _Compromise_. 

“So I'm not a guest then?”

“You'll be a guest until you take the pack’s mark,” Kavinsky said.

Adam hadn't realized they _had_ a mark. “Show me yours.”

“You've seen it,” K said, turning slightly and touching the dragon on the back of his shoulder so it would start devouring the sun.

“The others don't have that,” Adam noted, confused.

“No, but they all have one of mine. _That's_ the mark.”

Adam considered. “Pretty _Harry Potter_ ,” he finally settled on. The movies were still fresh in his mind. True to their word, one hot drowsy Tuesday when Adam had the whole day off, the pack had sat him down to watch all eight back-to-back. He’d liked them well enough, but Adam was more captivated by the Star Wars marathon they’d had weeks later. He _was_ unfairly biased towards stories about space travel.

“That's right, Parrish,” K said stepping forward, smirk tilting his lips up into an outright leer. “I'd be in you forever.”

Adam wrinkled his nose.

“Don't give me that look,” Kavinsky said, smile refusing to drop an ounce in shame. “You set that one up all by yourself.”

“Is that something you have to earn, then?” Adam asked, settling back into their rapport. “Your eternal hard on?”

K made a show of looking Adam up and down, neck crooning in thought, eyes dancing in the appraisal. “See, you running with us was supposed to be temporary. Membership to _this_ club is forever. I'd think on that.”

Adam didn’t say anything—that _was_ something to think on—but also K hadn’t answered his question.

“But,” Kavinsky continued, sensing Adam would keep pressing, “you already have _earned it_.” He stressed the word Adam had chose.

“Wait,” Adam said, pieces falling into place in his mind. “Was _that_ what Peugeot was talking about?”

K squinted, as if the effort to remember back to the races was an act of hunting elusive prey. “Yeah.”

“He knows?”

“About my dreaming? Fuck no,” K frowned, leaning back on his heels. “That asshole was sniffing around us a while back though. He knows that I give my people custom tats, but he doesn’t know _how_. To tell you the truth, I think he’s a bit jealous. I mean Jiang’s never been shy about his tattoos, but that octopus...”

Adam knew what he meant. Jiang had been quite vocal about exactly _who_ had given him the octopus, but the caliber of the art, even without the movement, was top quality. Professional. Not something to be expected from an amateur. Especially not on a connoisseur like Jiang. It would be hard to believe _Kavinsky_ had done it the traditional way himself. Adam certainly would have thought he was lying, if he didn’t know the truth. 

Still, it was a cool way to distinguish your people. Kavinsky’s dream tattoos didn’t even deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as a run of the mill gang tat. The fact that all of their designs were different, made the whole thing seem like a private joke. Adam supposed it was.

“And if I wanted it?” Adam asked. K’s eyes flicked to his, locking. “You choose the design, don't you?”

“Of course. That's the whole point.”

“Bit of a power trip.”

K huffed a laugh, eyes falling down. “All part of the test, Ivy. Do you know that I know you well enough to pick the right design?”

“What would mine be?”

“Assuming I've thought about it,” K contradicted, looking up through his lashes, eyes narrowed. 

“I know you have,” Adam breathed, staring in to Kavinsky’s eyes. Dark brown, like coffee left on the counter all morning. Nearly black in this lack of light. 

K stared right back at him and said, “A tiger lily.”

“Like the flower?” Adam asked, disbelievingly. _A tiger wouldn't be bad, but a flower?_

“Or the beast? K finished. “Are you a flower or a beast? 

Adam’s mouth twisted down. He tried. He _tried_ to keep Cabeswater _separate_. Adam thought he’d been doing a decent job at it all things considered but sometimes...he didn't know anymore. Lately Adam felt so much more _himself_ when he was in Cabeswater than anywhere else. 

“Or,” Kavinsky continued, like he was finally getting to his point. “Are you both?”

The question set something burning in Adam, because that _was_ it. 

K’s impossible creatures. Adam didn't even know how K would render such a thing. How the heavy orange and black striped fur might be interrupted by a wreath of smooth delicate petals. What it could even look like? Pollen whiskers. But _that_ was it.

Kavinsky reached up, and Adam had a second for his stomach to flip, but K’s fingers just pulled a pine needle from his hair.

“I leave you for five minutes ...” K grumbled good naturedly. He flicked the debris on the floor. 

Adam frowned. The trash can was _right_ there. 

“What?” K said. “The maid comes tomorrow.”

Adam cut his eyes to the side and he leaned his hip on the island counter. The romance of full initiation slid away. K’s carelessness brought him back down to earth and Adam let himself be more critical. 

“It's an ownership thing,” Adam said. 

“What? My tattoos? Not really.”

“But it's kind of an ownership thing.”

“More in the sense that we belong to each other,” K finally allowed. “To earn it, you have to gel with the group.”

“Is that what the others will say?”

“Fucking ask _them_ , Ivy,” K made a hands off gesture, “I don’t speak for them. But I doubt any of them would have done it if they thought otherwise.” He sighed. “Just don’t bother them with this if you’re not really interested.”

Adam raised his eyebrows in silent reproach.

“Look, I get the final say, because I’m the one with the magic touch,” K said. “It actually _is_ about how well you gel with the lot of us—which you do.”

“The others have told you this?”

“Of course they have. They’ve been asking me what’s the hold up. It usually doesn’t take this long for a newbie to become an ‘official member’ once each of the others gives their sign off,” K said, supplying the air quotes. His sudden hedgy manner was only explained when he continued, “But they still think you’re here because you want to be, remember?”

Adam’s mouth closed automatically. 

Kavinsky grimaced.

The silence pulled between them. Adam didn’t know why he was pushing this. It wasn’t something he felt like he was missing. The rest of the pack accepted him fine enough as he was, or so Adam thought, and if he couldn’t tell a difference it couldn’t really matter. _Could it?_

“I could give you one,” K said, breaking the quiet and into Adam’s thoughts. “And it would probably be the best I have ever done...with all the practice I’ve had.” 

Adam thought of the fluid movement of Jiang’s octopus as it swam around his torso and the tail of K’s dragon sinuous as it gobbled up the sun; the magic of it pulling him back.

“But if you take it, then you’re with us. And _you are with us_. Your priorities lie with us. Your loyalties are us. All of us.”

“You know where my priorities lie.”

“I mean like people-wise,” Kavinsky amended with that keen thing in his eyes. “We have no problems with ambition here.”

“...When we first made that deal, I thought you were allergic to it,” Adam admitted, side-stepping the real topic.

“Well,” K said and, with the roll of an eye, he stepped back. “The other’s wanted to know what the hold up was on their drumsticks.”

Adam leaned down, pulling out the drawer freezer and grabbing the frozen cardboard box advertising Limited Time Oreo Drumsticks. 

“Not a damn thing,” Adam said, following K back down the stairs. 

 

 

 

 

 

Kavinsky pulled the Evo in to Monmouth’s parking lot a few minutes before the appointed meeting time of nine o’clock sharp. Adam got a good five second view of the pig, the side of Gansey’s head in the driver’s seat talking with Blue in the back —all he could make out of Ronan were his legs sticking out of the open passenger door—before K took a wide lazy U turn and let the engine idle facing the street. 

Adam turned to eye K. While he wasn’t necessarily expecting Kavinsky to take this rather opportune moment to start shit with Gansey or Ronan, it would have been more convenient for Adam if he had just parked along side the pig. Instead, Kavinsky had chosen to give the two of them a final moment of privacy before Adam joined the others. 

When K met his gaze, Adam thought he might know why.

“Dreaming anything interesting today?” Adam asked. He wasn’t ready to get out quite yet and they _were_ early.

K shrugged. “I have a few new orders, but it’s mostly final prep for Friday.”

“First substance party of the year,” Adam mused.

“The _last_ first substance party of the year,” K corrected. “It’s gotta be bomb.”

“As if you’d throw anything less,” Adam said, patting his pockets for phone, wallet, keys, then grabbing his back pack. Adam’s hand found the door handle when he felt K’s fingers rest on the bare skin of his left arm. Adam turned back, his gaze tracking from K’s fingers up his arm, then to his eyes and locking there.

“Good luck today, babe,” K said.

“Thanks,” Adam said, unable to break eye contact. Kavinsky hadn’t taken his hand back. Adam’s grip on the door handle was too tight and the interior of the mitsu felt too close. With every breath each of them took, the pads of K’s fingers moved minutely over the fine hairs on Adam’s arm. 

Adam didn’t think he was imagining the way K’s eyes—looking at him like _that_ —were making all the oxygen in the car disappear. He was sort of aware he’d actually stopped breathing for a moment. Adam was almost _waiting_ for K’s gaze to drop to his lips, like they had in the hallway last week. But K held him fast and Adam started to wonder if it would be his own eyes that would fall this time.

They had to stop doing this.

Two short bursts of the pig’s horn startled Adam so bad he nearly jumped out of his skin. 

K’s sharp intake of breath was followed almost immediately by a wry scoff of a laugh, “Impatient much?” he asked as he craned his head to see out of the back window. “It’s not like loosing daylight really matters much when you’re going in a _cave_.”

“...Yeah,” Adam sighed and glanced out the side mirror to see Gansey’s magnanimous frown and Ronan standing next to the still open car door looking ready to march over to pound on the Mitsu’s hood. Adam figured he’d better get going.

“Text me later,” K said once Adam finally climbed out.

“‘Course,” Adam said before shutting the door. He swung his bag onto his back and started across the lot. Ronan ducked into the passenger side to flip the front seat back.

"Oi! Poison Ivy," K shouted when Adam was fifteen yards away. 

Adam turned back to him to find K was half out of the car. 

“You forgot your lunch, babe,” K said, then pitched something at him.

Adam caught the pink box of smokes low and shoved them in his back pocket before Gansey or any of the others could see. K was still half out of the evo when he straightened, smirking of course, and Adam flipped him off for good measure. 

Once Adam had climbed in the back of the pig with Blue, Ronan adjusted the seat back and got in too.

“Poison Ivy?” Ronan asked, with no small amount of derision, but it was covering utter disbelief.

“Yes, please explain,” Gansey requested, looking back at him through the rearview.

“He just calls me that because I had Cabeswater threatened to strangle him with some ivy when I first talked to him about the ley line.”

“Adam,” Blue said, aghast.

Gansey, who had fully turned around in his seat, was also staring at him speechless. 

Adam shrugged. It wasn’t like he had been planning on going through with it. But so what if he had? Their disgust seemed somewhat hypocritical, given they had suggested ending K’s life back in July too. It wasn't as if any of them cared if K lived or died. He didn't understand why they were suddenly pretending it mattered.

Ronan let out a bark of a laugh, breaking the shocked silence that had fallen in wake of Adam's shrug, "And Gansey got on _my_ case for a volatile association with Kavinsky."

Gansey turned back around in something that would have been called a huff on anyone else and started the pig’s engine. 

“...It doesn’t bother you he’s so...familiar?” Gansey asked, slowly pulling out of the lot while also eyeing the still idling mitsu.

“That’s K,” Adam said. Besides, a few endearments was not K at his most familiar. 

“Since when did you start calling him _K_?” Gansey asked. He was looking at Adam through the rearview with an odd, sharp expression on his face. 

Adam shrugged.

“He’ll just call you whatever he thinks will get under your skin the most, _Dick_ ,” Ronan said from his slumped position, which was as close to horizontal as he could get with the cramped foot well and his long legs.

“Oh yeah?” Adam asked, letting himself settle back against the worn leather. He was deeply uninterested in any of their opinions on his relationship with Kavinsky. Point of fact, he no longer even thought of their arrangement as 'his thing with Kavinsky.' They were _friends_ , had been for—Adam wasn't sure when over the summer that had changed—and he really didn't care what the rest of them thought. “What did he call you then?”

Ronan let out a tsking sound but remained conspicuously silent.

It didn’t matter. Adam already knew. 

A while ago the pack had gotten on the subject of Ronan by happenstance—bringing up Lynch was such an instant mood killer for K that they generally just avoided it, not that Ronan was often prone to come up in conversations anyway. Adam had been giving them hell for the nickname they had adopted for Rasmussen.

_Matty._

For a long time, he’d thought they were two different people when the pack spoke of them, as his first name was really Harold. But it came out that for a brief time during their freshman year, K and Swan had exclusively called Rasmussen Razzmatazz—something to do with the drugs he liked and the way he started dancing when he was on them. From what Adam had seen, it was a fitting title. But Razzmatazz was a mouth full and it was shortened to—not Raz, as one would expect but—Matty and Adam felt more than justified in his confusion on this.

“Oh you think _that’s_ weird?” Jiang had crowed from the theater seats he was sprawled out over. “You should have heard his nickname for Lynch.”

Adam raised his eyebrows, glancing to the other side of the couch where K sat. He’d been a bit tipsy—everyone but Swan and Adam were—but Kavinsky hadn’t done anything more than glower at the mention of Ronan’s name. So the pack continued.

“Princess,” Proko stage whispered in Adam’s ear with the sweetest malevolence as he passed behind the couch. 

This caused everyone to erupt in hysterics; except K, who groused “Fuck off,” though it was mostly drowned out by the other’s laughter.

“ _Princess?_ ” Adam asked, poking Kavinsky with a socked toe when the giggles died off somewhat.

“Look, you know how he is. He needs everything _just_ so and you have to do _everything_ for him. He’s like a—” Kavinsky broke off, looking more annoyed that he had said anything at all.

“Oh, no need to explain,” Adam said grinning. “I just can’t believe he let you live.”

K had slapped a palm on the side of Adam’s laughing face and pushed him into the couch cushions.

In the pig Adam let the silence drag, until he was satisfied he had made his point and then asked, “Is Matthew meeting us there? Or are we picking him up?”

“He’ll be at the Aglionby gates,” Gansey said.

 

 

 

 

 

Despite the roar of the pig’s engine, the inside of the Camero was silent. Even Matthew’s excited inquiries could not overcome the dampened mood that had fallen over them in the wake of the terror of the cave’s collapse.  

Ronan and Blue had given Matthew a bare explanation of what had happened, but Gansey was quiet, overly preoccupied with driving.

Adam pulled out his phone. He hadn't turned it off when they went into Cabeswater and, unlike every other electronic device, the forest couldn’t mess with the dream phone’s functionality. It was thoroughly what K had intended it to be: a steady, unyielding connection to him. However, given Gansey’s less than accepting position of K's forgeries last time the phone’s origin had come up Adam had not mentioned this before they went in. He'd left it on silent, but only truly felt justified in this omission once Gansey revealed Ronan’s secret history of being a folk singer and dancer of jigs. 

While they'd been in the cave the pack had sent him a total of two snapchats and twelve texts. 

“Are you texting Kavinsky?” Ronan finally asked, once Adam had read through them all and had just finished sending Proko a text detailing how the cave had fallen in on them.

“No. Jiang,” Adam said. He was responding to Jiang’s snapchat; a video of his gun shooting ink into someone's skin. Adam had seen him working on drafts of the design a couple weeks ago; now it was realized as a permanent installment on this twenty-something’s shoulder blade. Jiang _really_ wanted to get Adam in his chair.

Ronan half-turned in his seat to see Adam out of one of his eyes and repeated, “Jiang?”

“At the moment,” Adam said meeting his eyes. Then the phone was vibrating in his hand. Adam looked down to see the pulsating green circle telling him he was getting a call from Prokopenko. Adam hit the _accept?_ button and brought the phone to his ear before asking, “What’s up?”

“Are you _OKAY_?” Proko asked. His voice was tinny with a bit of an echo on it, which made Adam wonder if he was on speakerphone a second before Skov demanded in an equally tinny voice, “Did the floor really collapse under Dick?”

“Yeah, but we're alright.”

“Really, because-” Proko started but he was cut off by some loud rustling and then he said in a distant and displeased voice “K, bring the phone back!”

“Adam,” K asked, voice close with all trace of the rustle gone. 

“Yeah.”

“ _K_ ,” Skov’s voice whined in the background.

“Shut up,” K shouted back at them, receiver muffled, and then he was talking to Adam again. “Are you alright?”

“I'm fine.”

“ _Are you?_ ”

“Yeah.”

K let out a long sigh and then said, “I can't believe that place tried to kill you and I wasn't even there.”

“Statistically the odds are more likely I'd die _with_ you,” Adam quipped, the corner of his mouth tugging up. K went with him basically every time he needed to scry for fixes on the line; so many more times than when he went to Cabeswater with Gansey and the others on Sundays. “It was a fluke.”

“Still gonna have words with it,” K said evenly.

“K.”

“What? That forest needs to learn some manners. You're its vessel. You're doing all this shit for it like its no big deal! Like you don't have better things you could be doing than fucking moving rocks and how does it repay you? Dropping you down a big hole? Is that its idea of a joke?”

“K,” Adam said again. “I'm fine.”

“Good,” K said. “Are you back in town?”

“Not yet.”

“Have them drop you by mine.”

“No.”

“Why not?” K asked, affronted and doing a poor job of hiding it.

“Too weird.”

“I'll come get you then.”

“No,” he said again. Actually Adam really did want to see K and the others, but he had to work tomorrow, and with school starting Thursday, Adam didn't need to be prioritizing seeing people he literally just saw five hours ago over sleep.

K seemed to get it because he asked, “Dinner tomorrow then?”

K asked him like it wasn't a sure thing. Adam appreciated it. “Course.”

“You’ll let us know if you need anything?”

“I'm not gonna say it again.”

“You're fine,” K said flatly. “Yeah, I heard you the first time, but _something_ tells me you wouldn't admit it even if you did.”

Adam didn't respond to that. “Tell Proko I appreciate his concern.”

K relayed this, microphone muffled again as if he had put his thumb over it. And then the vague ambient sounds were back and Adam heard Proko's faraway shout, “We care about you, man!”

“You hear that?” K asked.

“Yeah.”

Kavinsky didn't say anything else. Just waited two beats and hung up. Adam finished his reply to Jiang and slipped the phone back in his front pocket. The air in the pig had been uncomfortable before, but now it was thick with resentment. He wondered if this was gonna be a thing _every_ time he took a phone call. 

“K? Is that your boyfriend?” Mathew inexplicably asked, turning towards him. 

A weird choking sound came from the front seat and, on the other side of Ronan’s brother, Adam noticed Blue had gone still. He turned fully to regard Mathew and with one glance Adam knew he was completely earnest.

“Why would you ask that?”

“Well, he clearly cares about you,” Matthew said in a voice that reminded Adam of a student reporting the correct answer to a teacher at school. “Making sure you're alright like that. And you kept reassuring him that you were, even when he didn't ask outright.”

Adam felt his lips press in a thin line. “You have really good ears.”

Matthew’s smile beamed quietly and, in spite of the awkwardness, Adam was glad to have an outsider’s opinion.  Sometimes the dissonance between Adam’s first hand experience with K and the time he spent with Gansey, Ronan, and Blue with their jaded paradigm of Kavinsky and the others made Adam feel like he was going crazy. He'd find himself second guessing things that he had already established as truths. 

“Mathew,” Ronan said sounding like it was taking a lot, if not all, of his limited patience to keep his voice level. “Kavinsky was only checking on Adam like that because he wants to protect his investment. He's conned Adam into a corner. It's not caring. He’s using him.”

“Our deal was relatively equal for what was being traded,” Adam said. 

Adam could feel Ronan gearing up for a rebuttal and he wanted to beat him to it, but shouting _‘K does care about me!’_ seemed a bit melodramatic and ridiculous.

“Ronan, enough,” Gansey said, with a particular amount of wariness. “Jane, do you have time to come up after we drop Mathew off?”

“Yeah,” Blue said. “But if we're driving up to Dulles tomorrow, I can't be too long. School starts Tuesday for me and everything.”

“Adam?” Gansey asked. 

“I don't think so. I have work tomorrow at seven. Gonna turn in early. Just let me off with Mathew and I'll walk.”

“Fuck that,” Ronan cut in. “We'll drop you off at St. Agnes.”

“Yes,” Gansey said. Adam glanced at his profile. In the late post-sunset light, he looked troubled. Adam shifted and turned to stare out at the store fronts of Henrietta’s historic downtown, bustling for a Sunday and flush with Ag boys back for the new school year.

“Whatever's easiest,” Adam said. He had forgotten how much they tip-toed around each other. It was exhausting having to make a point _not_ to fight with your friends.

 

 

 

 

 

Adam let himself into K's house after work. He'd been scheduled seven to three, but the day had started slow and only gotten slower as it wore on, so they’d let him go early. Adam was mostly frustrated by this. Sure, it was nice to have time to himself and he _had_ been looking forward to seeing the others. But at what cost? These were his final fully free days unburdened by schoolwork. After Thursday, his available work schedule would be cut by more than half. What he really needed to be doing was working a few extra shifts. It was never an easy transition re-dividing his life between work and school, and not the least of which was the dramatic drop in his earnings.

Adam had tried to pick up some hours beyond what he’d been scheduled the week before, but none of his supervisors were able to shift some his way. There just weren't enough hours. Even Boyd, who he’d often been able to convince to throw some hours to him in the past—whether because his knack with auto-mechanics or to get Adam out of his father’s house, if only for a few hours—wasn’t busy enough to justify his presence. But it was foolish to look for more shifts when he couldn’t even keep the ones he had. 

“I'm gonna need you and Proko with me Wednesday,” K was saying in the kitchen.

“When?” Swan asked.

“At one and then again at eight thirty. Should be quick. It's Stevens and Bolstoi.”

“Sure,” Swan said over the sounds of a sharp knife chopping through something crisp and against a wood cutting board. Adam stepped into the kitchen and K was the first to see him, as he was sitting on the kitchen island in front of the fridge. 

“Well, look who it is!” K said, hopping off the counter. Swan glanced up from where he was standing at the far end of the island, vast array of cubed and sliced vegetables spread in front of him. K pulled Adam into the pack’s hand-clasp-hug briefly and then stood back examining Adam. “We were wondering.”

“Told you. Work," Adam said, glancing at Swan. He had told them he was alright. He hadn’t wanted them to worry, but there was something to be said for being able to see that someone was unhurt with your own eyes.

Swan made a dismissive noise at K’s comment and clapped Adam on the back in greeting, saying, “You’re good, Ivy.”

“What's going on in here?” Adam asked, surveying Swan’s set up on the island and the pots boiling on the stove.

“Well, you're too early to reap the spoils of our efforts just yet. But K and I are cooking dinner.”

“K _and_ you?” Adam asked, giving Kavinsky, who had hoisted himself back on the counter, a dubious look. 

“Hey, I've done my part so far,” K said in self defense. “The meat needs to marinate!”

“He's got the entree. I've got the sides,” Swan said grinning. “Still have to throw this in the oven though and it takes about an hour, if the consensus wants crispy—which we do.”

“Which means,” K said grinning. “I can chill here for fifteen more minutes, before I even need to get up and heat the barbie. Anything interesting happen at the garage?”

 

 

 

 

 

“Why won't you come to a drop?” Proko asked after he rolled. The dice clattered to a stop against the rim of the backgammon board. A six and a one.

Proko doubled up two of his blue pieces on a red leather triangle and skipped another piece home. Dinner was near being done. The outdoor table was set and Adam and Proko were half way through a game on one of the wrap-around benches of the back deck. 

Further down, Noah was practically sitting in Skov’s lap as they both looked on his phone, trawling the internet for quality memes. At least Adam was pretty sure that’s what they were doing given the increasingly random things they were saying and their bouts of giggles. K and Swan had finally finished having a _discussion_ about when K should heat up the grill if they wanted the kabobs to be done at the same time as Swan’s side dishes. Jiang was multitasking between texting someone and drawing at a clear corner of the table.

Proko took a pull from his session beer, gaze on the board intent. This penchant for backgammon, like the twenty different kinds of tea K had in his cupboard, was a quirk of personality one expected to find in a man of sixty; on the surface, it would seem incongruous on a boy of seventeen, actually it wasn’t. Proko’s parents had died when he was about eight. He’d been raised in boarding schools and by his grandparents on holidays. But it was the summer his parent’s car had crashed, in the horrible weeks after, that Proko’s grandfather had taught him how to play. It had probably helped him keep sane in the wake of such a loss.

“K hasn’t invited me.”

Prokopenko gave him an unimpressed look. “You need to ask for what you want, Parrish.”

“Who said I want to go?” Adam asked, after a beat. “It’s dangerous.”

Proko raised his eyebrows in an expression eerily similar to K's own reaction whenever Adam said something like that.

“Look, as much as I think you guys have K’s back,” Adam said, wanting to be clear his decision wasn’t meant to be anything other than his own risk assessment. “There’s still too much danger for me to _want_ to go.”

Proko shrugged and an entire round went by in silence.

“Why?” Adam wondered aloud, when Proko rolled double fives. “Why ask now?”

“Well, you've always been hard up for cash,” Proko said disaffectedly, as he scored a piece home. “And you know K gives us a cut. Ag increased the tuition this year... and your jobs probably aren't paying anymore than before,” Proko listed off, bouncing a second piece from the far side of the board home. He looked up at Adam with his shrewd, cold, cold blue eyes. “Plus you have to buy food now that you've moved out of your parents’.”

“Yeah, that would be a problem,” Adam said bitter. He picked up the dice and rolled mostly to break eye contact. “...If the church hadn't lowered my rent.” Adam was able to get one of his pieces home, but it left the one it had been doubled up with open and vulnerable. “Told me they’d gotten a tax break for the exact same amount as Ag’s tuition increase.”

Proko squinted at him; whether this was because of what Adam said or his move, Adam wasn't certain. It might have been both. Proko picked up the dice and asked, “You think?”

“I'm sure Gansey thought he was quite clever when he came up with that one.”

“Gansey?” Proko scoffed. “He knows those nice church people well enough to convince them to _lie_ just to help little old you?”

Adam hadn’t dwelt on the mystery of the rent. Things had been so hectic after he had opened the letter from Ag —with Gansey, with Cabeswater, with Kavinsky. That problem, which had been too neatly solved, had fallen by the wayside. If Adam had given it the slightest more thought he would have seen his mistake. Proko, by virtue of not having Gansey try to ‘help’ him all the time, every time, was objective enough to put it all in perspective.

Gansey hadn't much personal interest in church. Though he went on most holidays with his family, it seemed to be more to preserve his mother's conservative image and all that, than any genuine spiritual connection. To Adam’s knowledge, he had never in the year an a half he lived in Henrietta attended a service at the Presbyterian church in town. That was the other thing...Gansey wasn’t Catholic. He wouldn't even know who to talk to at St. Agnes to make this arrangement. At the time, Adam had been impressed by Gansey’s unfeigned shock when he had confronted him about it on the phone that day. Gansey had been happy and, Adam had thought, been doing a pretty good job at concealing his machinations. But it hadn't been him. And if the rent wasn’t Gansey....

Something cold pooled in the bottom of Adam’s gut. He still hadn’t picked up the dice even though it was his turn again.

Proko met his gaze and quite matter of factly spoke the words Adam had been thinking, “Ronan fucking Lynch.”

Adam pinched the bridge of his nose.

_Ronan?_ He expected that kind of thing from Gansey, who thought nothing of giving tens of thousands of dollars as a bribe to Ag just to keep Ronan’s name on the registry. _But Ronan?_ Ronan didn’t think he could handle his rent? Ronan spent time thinking about him and came to the conclusion Adam wasn’t capable of taking care of himself? Ronan felt the need to what—go behind his back?

“You okay there, man?” Proko was still sitting across from him; his blue eyes usually so detached and calculating were now watching Adam with concern. He knew his face must be twisted. He could feel that slick black nastiness inside him snarling up.

“Yeah, fine,” Adam said, woodenly. He wasn’t fine though. Not in the slightest. He felt like he was going to explode. He didn't want Proko to see that. He needed to get out of here. Adam wasn't angry with Proko. 

He was mad at Ronan. At Ronan’s presumption. At the state of things that would make Ronan Lynch pity him enough to go behind his back and pay his rent.

How pathetic Ronan must find him. And _Ronan_ was too much of a coward to tell Adam what he had done. He had let Adam think it was Gansey for _months_. Ronan thought so little of Adam that he had to hide his help from him. He had forced this solution into Adam’s life without his full understanding or sign-off. 

That was the problem, Adam realized. It was not the gift itself, but the way it was given. 

Kavinsky and the others had been giving things to Adam for months. At the start of his running with K, Adam had been forced to tuck in his pride when it came to having other people spend their money on him. Kavinsky had made it clear that was a part of their deal and Adam just had to suck it up. 

Somewhere along the line that feeling had morphed though.

It had something to do with Swan wondering if he was hungry or when Adam last ate. Or when Proko asked if Adam had got enough sleep the night before. An innocuous question, but the first time he had asked it made Adam angry. More so than questions about his eating habits, Adam was touchy about his sleep. He never could get enough. Adam had too many commitments and there were only so many hours in the day and really what business was it of Proko’s if Adam ran himself ragged? Adam had glared and as he was staring at Prokopenko, he’d realized that Proko hadn’t asked out of malice. Neither had he asked out of some hapless naïveté to Adam’s situation. 

He had really wanted to know. _Proko was concerned about him._ There had been a few times over the summer that Proko had got K to give Adam an early night or late morning, because Proko knew Adam hadn’t had enough sleep. K hadn’t put up at a fight and Adam had been able to catch up some then.

They were Adam’s friends. They cared about him. They wanted him to be alright. 

Adam thought he got it now,—even though when Gansey tried to buy him things it still felt like charity. Kavinsky too knew he was hard up for cash most of the time, but it was different with K. Kavinsky spent his own money, which he earned himself—albeit through a rather unconventional means—but the risks he took were his own. He spent his own money which he had made himself on all of them—not just Adam. Usually it was food, but not always. K didn't make a big thing out of it. And it _wasn't_ a big thing.

This rent money was kind of like that. Something Adam needed. But it was so much bigger than food. The vital difference seemed to stem from how K told Adam what he was buying for him. Kavinsky told Adam what he was doing, before he did it, thus giving Adam an opportunity to object or shut him down. Compare that to the deliberate sneakiness of how Ronan had gone behind his back and, not only lied to him, but also made Mrs. Ramirez lie too, there was little surprise why Adam felt like dirt. He wondered what Ronan had said to get her to keep quiet. 

He took a heavy breath. It wasn’t like Adam couldn’t have found a way to make ends meet himself. Twenty four hundred dollars was an enormous sum. But retrospectively, he could see if Ronan hadn't started paying on the sly, Adam would have stressed about it for a few weeks and then gone down to his credit union for a loan, probably. Or maybe taken K up on his offer that second Sunday to go on a few drops.

All of the sneaking and the planning Ronan had clearly put into it made Adam feel like garbage. Ronan didn’t respect Adam enough to let him make his own financial decisions. As if Adam wouldn’t be able to see that something would have to give in order for him to have covered all of his expenses. As if Adam was stupid enough not to find a way to compensate. As if he was some precocious child shooed from the room, while his elders discussed his future without him. As if this wasn’t Adam’s life. As if taking Ronan’s money wasn’t Adam’s _choice._

His mind was full of these horrible recursive thoughts: How could Ronan think of him that way? Ronan thought of him that way? How could he justify that violation to himself?

Adam had to leave now. The more he thought of it, the angrier he got. Adam braced his hand on the bench behind him, ready to lever himself up and—he didn’t know... go find Ronan, probably—when Cabeswater brushed against him. 

The sensation of downy pine needled branches brushed on his skin. He heard a bird call winnow through trees that he was not surrounded by. It wasn’t enough to be merely mentally somewhere calm, though. Adam couldn’t have this rage inside him here, when the source of it wasn’t even present. 

Adam was staring at a spot somewhere over Proko’s head when he opened himself to Cabeswater. The forest deftly reached in, bypassing his worry of what Proko thought of this dragging silence and his suspicion of Gansey—Adam wondered if he really _didn’t_ know something about this after all—going straight for the twisting blackness. Cabeswater picked up his rage, the greasy mangled dog that was cowering and snarling at the heart of him; more feral than anything inside a civilized person had any right to be. The forest picked it up and then it was gone. Adam was left with the wind in the trees and a hollow easing in his chest.

He sunk back down on the bench and closed his eyes for a few seconds. Then looked at Proko. Whatever concern that he’d had for Adam seemed to have resolved, and the other boy was screwing his pinky finger back and forth in his ear, while staring at the pieces on the board. Proko pulled his pinky out of his ear and held it out in front of him. There was some amber gunk caught in the tip of his nail. Proko caught Adam’s eye and then made as if to put his pinky in his mouth. Adam all but winced. Proko scoffed and instead wiped his finger on the inside of his tee shirt.

The hairs on the back of Adam’s neck were prickled and he glanced over, scanning till his eyes locked with K’s. From the fire that was currently shooting up through the grill grate and charring the meat, it was obvious K had been watching Adam for a while. He had seen Cabeswater take Adam’s anger. Of course, there was nothing to see _beyond_ that immediate loss of all of his tension, and every other single bit of body language that said Adam was pissed vanishing in an instant.

It was with a horrible foreboding Adam realized Kavinsky was going to say something.

“What the hell, K?” Swan demanded from the screen door. He was staring at the kabobs, which were still _on_ fire. 

“OH FUCK,” K said when he saw what he’d let happen to their dinner before killing the flames and wielding the tongs to get the worse effected meat onto a cooler section of the grill.

 

 

 

 

 

Swan and Kavinsky’s joint-dinner venture was tasty despite the char-boil nature of the meat. The average of the pack’s evaluation was an eight for Swan’s sides and a three for K’s kabobs, out of a ten of course. Adam was the only one (including K) who thought the meat was decent. This assessment might have had something to do with Adam’s steady and monotonous diet of oatmeal, cans of beans, and Top Ramen. From this practically anything would be an improvement, even K’s really, really crispy meat. And to be entirely fair, it was perfectly good—if you cut off the charred outside part and didn’t mind chewing for a good minute.

Once Adam had made his excuses (tired) and assured K, who had caught his elbow on the way out the door, that he was actually alright (just tired), Adam drove carefully to Monmouth.

He _was_ tired. But sleep would have to wait.

Adam followed the road signs to a T and pulled into the lot to see the pig parked a neat ten paces from the front door, but it was Ronan’s BMW Adam was concerned with. He had parked it further from the entrance, more focused on the ease of peeling out of the lot than how far he would have to walk to get inside.

Adam took a deep breath. He hadn't realized he'd stopped inhaling sometime before he turned the corner and got a clear view of the old warehouse. While ostensibly Ronan had been finding other ways to fill his evenings than street racing—he hadn't been out when the pack took to the streets—that had in no way been a guarantee that he would be _here_ tonight.

Adam took another deep breath. This time to fortify himself. The anesthesia of Cabeswater had worn off hours ago. He had deliberately avoided all related trains of thought. Adam was going to have to be careful if he didn't want to have to negotiate with the forest while he was arguing with Ronan. He wasn't sure that was possible, because he had a feeling this was going to be an _argument_ with Ronan.

Adam climbed to the second floor landing and knocked. He stood there for several moments worrying that he would have to just let himself in, if Gansey had his headphones on or—and he doubted this, the loft’s main lights were on when he had parked—Gansey had actually fallen asleep before midnight. 

Adam knocked again. A few seconds later, Gansey opened the door. He had on his wire-rims and behind them his expression was guarded, but Adam knew him well enough to see some vague hope spark in his eyes when he recognized exactly who was on his stoop at eleven fifty-eight pm.

“Is Ronan here?”

That hopeful something dropped from Gansey’s eyes, but he still held the door open wider, and said, “He’s in his room.” 

“Thanks,” Adam said, already striding across the loft to the only closed door. The whole place smelled weirdly of dog, but Adam put that from his mind, as he knocked loudly. Without waiting for permission, Adam opened it and shut the door firmly behind him. He pressed himself against the wood, taking in the disaster area known as Ronan Lynch’s room. Ronan himself was standing off to the right in front of Chainsaw’s cage, headphones half off his ears, looking as near to shocked as Adam had ever seen him.

He and Adam stared at each other for several seconds, before Adam spoke, “I know it was you.”

It must have been something in his tone, because Ronan turned to him fully, leaving the cage door open and waiting for Adam’s real reaction.

“The rent,” Adam clarified. “You had no right.”

Despite the frustrated huff that he had to communicate this through _words_ , Ronan was calm when he asked, “Would you rather be on the street?”

“I would have figured something out,” Adam said, lips pressed into a thin line.

“And probably have killed yourself trying to balance it all,” Ronan conceded with an elaborate shrug. “I didn’t want to see you get this far only to fail because some fucking Ag admin wanted to line their pockets with a little extra.”

“You should have asked me.”

“Why? So you could have said 'no?'”

“You don’t know what I would have said.”

“Are you really trying to tell me you wouldn’t have shut me down like you always do to Gansey?”

“Maybe not,” Adam conceded and then sighed, “Like, I get why you did it and I appreciate that. I do. But this is my life and you don’t get to make that call.”

“This is exactly why I didn't _ask_ you,” Ronan said, turning back to his bird.

“You think I’m here because you paid it. I’m not.” Adam said, trying to rephrase his perspective. “I’m here because you didn’t consult me. Because you lied to me.”

Ronan glanced at Adam, his eyes narrowed at the accusation, but he didn't deny it. “You know how difficult you make these conversations. For like no fucking reason. None of us want to see you on the street-”

“Did Gansey put you up to this?”

Ronan scoffed. “He didn’t know anything about it.”

Somehow that was worse. That _Ronan_ , who was even more self-obsessed than Gansey, would see the state of Adam’s affairs and think he should _do_ something about it—about Adam—himself was too much.

“Don’t give me that look,” Ronan said. “What do you want me to do? Say ‘I'm sorry?’”

“For starters, yes.”

“Well, I'm not,” Ronan said. “You keep saying you would have found a way. Lord knows I am the first to say you're capable but there was no way out of this. That was too much money, even for _you_ to scrounge up. You know it and I know it and you still wouldn’t have accepted my help.”

“Don’t apologize then,” Adam conceded. “But I want you to admit you had no right to interfere without my permission.”

“No,” Ronan said, meeting Adam’s hard gaze. “Have you thought about how it would feel for us to have to watch you let yourself loose the room at St. Agnes because you prioritized Ag _again_ and refused Gansey’s offer of an affordable rent?”

“ _I'm_ not thinking how _you_ would feel if _I_ were homeless?”

“See,” Ronan said, throwing up his hands. “I knew you weren’t going to like what I had to say.”

“I don’t,” Adam said. “But it’s not like you’re really trying.” 

Ronan glared at him.

Adam stared back, inflicting as much distaste as he could into his gaze, and asked, “How far out have you paid?”

“Why?” Ronan asked, looking hedgy.

“Answer the damn question.”

“Through the first of the year,” Ronan exhaled with that same grudging reluctance, as if he knew exactly where this was going.

“Don't bother paying any more.”

Ronan let loose a derisive scoff, shaking his head. He was looking at Chainsaw when he said, “Don’t do this, Adam.” Ronan’s tone was tired, pleading mixed with this disgusted pity that Adam couldn't just take the hand out. That he couldn’t _not_ make this a big thing. 

That was what pushed Adam from what felt like an acceptable level of calm to livid rage. It wasn’t _about_ the money. Really it wasn't. It was that Ronan hadn't told him. That he had just presumed that he could insert himself into Adam’s life in that way and then to have the gaul to make _Adam_ out to be the unreasonable one. When Ronan wouldn't even apologize for an intrusion that was not his right or his business.

Something hot curdled in Adam and snapped. Before he even realized it, his fist had punched through a portion of Ronan’s wall above the light switch. Monmouth was old and Adam’s hand had gone straight through the drywall and the old thin slated wood and into vacant air, thankfully between two of the beams, through no conscious thought of his own. 

Adam was vaguely aware that Ronan had taken a step toward him, but he was too busy reeling from what he had done. Too busy trying to ignore what the nasty spiky anger was telling him he _wanted_ to do; kick the wall repeatedly until he had a hole he could crawl out of. Adam squeezed his eyes shut. 

_Cabeswater_ , he thought. 

From nothing the forest rushed through him seeking Adam’s rage. In one breath, it had it and for the second time that day, Cabeswater took his anger. There was an audible crack when the forest left him, bereft and cold. The lights dimmed momentarily and Ronan’s raven hopped and fluttered out of the open cage door to cling to the back of Ronan’s biker tank. 

“Kryah!” Chainsaw said, peeking from behind. 

Ronan reached a hand over his shoulder to cup her head. 

“Fuck this!” the bird yelled. Ostensibly, that was what Ronan had been doing on his nights in, Adam thought with a jarring absurdity. Teaching his bird to _swear_. Adam became aware of a sharp pain in his hand. He pulled it from the wall and stared at the two large splinters sticking out from the spaces between his knuckles dispassionately. 

He could feel Ronan looking at him. Adam shifted, standing straighter, and met his eyes.

_Ronan Lynch would not tell him what to do._

“Never say those words to me again,” Adam said. “And I do not want you paying any more of my rent, since you don’t understand why going behind my back like that wasn’t alright.”

Ronan was watching him with that strange expression. The one K said meant Ronan liked him. But seeing it now, Adam didn’t think so. Ronan was wondering if Adam was even human anymore. It was probably a valid question. Adam wondered himself sometimes. 

 

 

 

 

 

Adam locked his door. He emptied his pockets on the dresser, stumbled into his en suite bathroom, and braced himself on the white porcelain of the sink. Adam stared into the eyes of his reflection in the vanity mirror. He couldn’t get how Ronan had been looking at him out of his mind. 

_What was he?_

Adam hadn’t even waited for Ronan’s response. He wouldn’t have gotten one anyway. Adam left Ronan’s room, without bothering to close the door after him and walked back across the loft. Gansey had watched him warily from his place on the floor with his hands holding a tiny lamppost to the sidewalk the requisite fifteen seconds for the Krazy Glue to dry. Adam hadn’t waited for Gansey to say anything either. He’d just left. The drive to St. Agnes had been a blur.

_What was he now?_

When the questions got too much, Adam splashed some water on his face and gave a cursory brush to his teeth. Then he pulled out a generic store brand bottle of isopropyl, popped the cap, and with a deep inhale poured a great heaping splash over his injured hand. 

Adam let out a wracking breath. The pain jumped from a six to a nine, as quick as someone turning a flame from simmer to full throttle on a stove top range, and he bit into his lip hard to keep from vocalizing this. When the worst had subsided more or less, he flexed his hand and grimaced as the burn went deeper. Adam looked at the bloody punctures in the good light of the bathroom. He didn’t see any remaining splinters of wood, but pulling the pieces he could see out by the dome light in the car had been no guarantee for success. Adam rinsed off the alcohol and patted his hand dry with his only dark blue hand towel. 

Exhausted, he turned off the bathroom light and went to curl up in his bed with the patchwork blanket that had come with the room. He pulled it over himself and holding the dream phone in front of his face. 

Adam texted K.

_hey_

He stared at the phone for several seconds. When K’s reply was not immediate, Adam set the phone next to his pillow and allowed his eyes to close momentarily. He would just rest them till K got back to him. 

Adam next woke up to his phone’s morning alarm. Light was already filtering through the metal blinds on his singular window. Adam turned off the alarm and tapped into his messages. Adam _had_ been tired, because when he checked the timestamps of K’s replies, they were an hour later; Adam hadn't heard the message pings at all. 

_whats up babe?_  
_babeeeee_  
_ivvvyyyyy???_  
_you fell asleep huh_

Then a whole six and a half hours later:

_hey when youre done with the warehouse, head back to church and i’ll pick you up. we’re gonna meet the pack for froyo or some shit late afternoon if youre up for it_

K nearly always ended by asking if the pack’s plans were cool with him—likely in deference to the caprice of Cabeswater, but Adam liked the gesture all the same. Adam texted him back:

_nvm_  
_sounds good. see you at 2_

He ate his breakfast of instant oatmeal in a couple of watery gulps, before grabbing what he needed for work and heading downstairs to find Mrs. Ramirez. He needed to tell her that he would be taking care of the difference after January, just in case Ronan got any ideas.

He found her in the church office, as she often was during the early morning hours. Adam knocked.

“Morning, ma’am,” Adam said stepping in the small room. 

“Well, hello, Adam,” she greeted looking up from the computer screen, reading glasses sliding down her nose. “How are you?”

“I’ve been alright,” Adam said, and meant it in spite of yesterday's revelations. “How about you?”

“I've been well. There's always more to do and Lord willing it will stay that way.”

“That's good,” he said. Adam cut straight to the point. “I wanted to talk to you about that tax assessment St. Agnes had earlier this year.”

She blinked at him, over her black cat-eye glasses and asked, “What about it?”

“I wanted to make it clear that _I_ will be paying my rent through the end of the school year. The _whole_ of my rent.”

Mrs. Ramirez’s lips scrunched up like she had been sucking something sour. “Ronan only wanted for your last year to be as stress free as possible. You are so close.”

“I know.”

After a moment, she said, “He's already paid that portion through the end of this year.”

“Yes, but on January first I will pay the full three hundred dollars.”

Mrs. Ramirez gave a small shrug and a smile that seemed to say ‘it's your choice.’ 

He nodded and turned to leave.

“Adam,” she called out. He looked back at her. “I realize it’s not my business, but Ronan’s intentions were in the right place. He was trying to do a good thing for you.”

“I don't doubt that’s what he thought,” Adam allowed. “But could it really still be considered a good thing for me if he had to lie about it?” 

“The hallmark of a truly good deed is when the benefactor does not gloat.”

Adam gave a shrug of his own and decided not to mention any of the truly salient points of the conversation he’d had with Ronan last night.

 

 

 

 

 

“Have you been here before?” K asked, unexpectedly pulling off the interstate into the near empty parking lot of a rundown diner later that afternoon. The neon sign proclaimed it to be the Barbecue It.

Adam shook his head. The place was actually called the Barbecue Pit, but the ‘P’ was out and the sign was so cruddy and rust stained it was hard to make out that it had ever been there at all, even mid-afternoon. Adam wondered how K had found this place. It was a real hole, with screwy hours, and the only reason Adam knew about it was his father like to go there with his work buddies for breakfast Friday morning. TGIF and all that. “I thought we were meeting the others?”

“Not for a couple hours,” K said, opening the car door. “I wanna grab a bite to eat.”

“What?” Adam asked just as K slammed the door shut. “K! _Kavinsky!_ ” Adam shouted, scrambling out of the car to follow K as he was now _entering_ the diner.

“C’mon, Parrish!” K called. “Time’s a tickin’.”

Indeed it was. It hadn’t even struck three yet, but according to the peeling stickers listing the hours on the inside of the window next to the glass entrance, they only had an hour before closing. K shoved the door open and the tinkle of a bell filled the relative hush of the space. The diner was deserted except for a man who worked the swing shift at the trailer factory. The guy mostly kept to himself, but he and Adam had shared a few words from time to time and Adam knew he’d been on the payroll for the past forty years. He was seated at the lunch counter, watching a baseball game on a tube tv propped up to the right of the service window.

They passed a faded sign that asked them to ‘Please seat yourself! in red cursive. K took them to a booth in the front corner by the window, far away from prying ears. Once K had slid in, he pulled a couple menus from behind the napkin dispenser and handed one to Adam.

“What are we doing here?”

“I’ve been told this place has excellent scrambles,” K said, flipping open the menu and giving the offerings a cursory glance.

“Told by who?” Adam asked, incredulous. 

K let out this odd scoffing laugh, but didn’t say anything, until the waitress bustled over, notepad out and pen poised, “What can I get ya?”

“One cup of coffee,” K said, pointing to Adam.

“Black,” Adam supplied.

“And a orange juice.”

“Alright,” she said making notes on her pad. “What do ya wanna eat? Kitchen’s closin’ up soon.”

“Two plates of hash browns and eggs. One over easy and the other -” K trailed off looking at Adam again.

“That’s fine.”

“What kind of toast?”

“I want a biscuit,” K said brightly.

“And you, hun?”

“Wheat will be fine, thank you.”

“I’ll get these in for you boys,” the waitress bustled off.

“Why are we here, K? I’m not even that hungry. I don’t-”

“I am buying,” K said and then when he saw Adam’s expression, continued, “ _Yes_ , you will let me once you find out what I want to talk about.”

“...If it’s that touchy, why can’t we have it in the car or-”

“So that when we’re done with this conversation we won’t have to come back again.”

Adam raised his eyebrows. 

“Plus, this place ain’t exactly a bustling center of activity,” K said with a meaningful look and a glance around at the empty restaurant. 

Adam waited for K to go on and explain all the secrecy, but it was only after the waitress had come back with their coffee and juice, that K, visibly having worked up to some big question, actually spoke.

“You're not taking some kind of drug, are you?” K asked. 

Adam blinked, completely blindsided. _That_ was what Kavinsky wanted to ask him? Adam glanced over at the empty lunch counter, the old veteran watching the near fuzzed out game, and suddenly what K had said about never coming here again snapped in with everything else.

“Is this an intervention?” Adam asked in slight but comic horror.

“No judgement. I'm just curious. Market research, man,” K said, tone placating. “But whatever you paid I could've hooked you up for free. ...Well, y'know, not free. It’d be on the ley line, but...” K trailed off with a shrug. He was deeply earnest. Adam was sure that if he had been on some kooky drug that K would have forged him an impeccable copy for free. Adam probably would have let him. 

“I'm not taking anything.”

K raised his eyebrows and watched Adam, clearly waiting for something.

“I'm not,” Adam repeated with a laugh. 

“Alright,” K said, dragging out the word, dubious. “Well, let me ask you something else then,” K said leaning in again. “How’d you go from on the verge of a rage explosion to calm AF in like two seconds, eh? ‘Cause that was freaky.”

He was talking about yesterday. 

Adam just shrugged. He’d really been hoping K would have been satisfied with Adam’s reassurance in the hall and that what he’d seen on the deck would be forgotten.

“Ah c’mon! I want to know what was different this time? Two months ago you would have had to leave or punch something.”

“Yeah?” Adam asked, nearly amused. The fact that K knew _that_ and had catalogued a change in him was....Adam didn’t know. It wasn’t unexpected and he wasn’t uncomfortable with it, but still some kind of nerve was fluttering in his stomach. Adam didn’t have to tell K anything. He didn’t need to explain himself. Despite knowing this, Adam was fighting between the urge to explain to K about what he and Cabeswater had been doing and the engrained gut-instinct of deny, deflect, and outright lie to just get out of a This-Is-Not-Your-Business line of questioning.

“I saw you almost bolt,” K continued. “You were about to get up and leave you were so angry. But then you just _stopped_ ,” K said emphasis heavy. “I want to make sure you didn’t give yourself a-ah... lobotomy.”

“You want to make sure I’m alright?”

Kavinsky shrugged. 

“I’m fine, K,” Adam said seriously. K continued to look at him, evaluating. “But that’s not gonna be the end of this conversation, is it?”

K’s grin went maniacal, “Nope.”

 

 

 

 

 

“That was like a fucking magic trick!” K continued, once the waitress had set their food down on the table and ensured that they didn’t need anything else. Adam watched her wander behind the counter and into the back, before turning to K. “You switched it off just like that! I want to know what happened there.”

“Nothing.”

K rolled his eyes. “You're a magician,” K said simply. “Explain the magic trick.”

“A magician doesn’t reveal his secrets.”

“You could see why I might find that useful.”

Adam didn’t exactly. K was remarkably even-tempered. But more to the point, Adam said, “I don't think you'd be able to pull this one off despite your ....capabilities.”

“You think not?”

“Well,” Adam said, and figured _why not?_ He had been feeling rather proud of this solution and thought K might appreciate the genius of it, “I've been giving my rage to Cabeswater.”

K looked at him hard for several seconds, uncomprehending. “What does that mean?”

“I let it take it from me.”

K was still frowning. “It like what–reaches into you and just _takes_ it?”

“Pretty much.”

“And you don't feel it? Like ever again?” K asked, gesturing a finger at Adam in a vague corkscrewing motion.

“Not for a few hours.”

“How often are you letting it do this?” K asked, face inscrutable. 

“Mostly just on Sundays,” Adam admitted.

K made a ‘what do you expect?’ face, but he was still frowning when he went back to poking at his food.

“You're concerned,” Adam stated, after looking at him for several more seconds. Rather than watch K’s further reaction, Adam turned to his plate, breaking the yolk with his fork and watching the yellow liquid spill amongst the grated potatoes. 

“Why you gotta make it sound like it's some big surprise?” K asked, setting down his knife with more force than necessary. “Of course I'm fucking concerned. Seems a bit fucking concerning, don't you think?”

Adam didn’t say anything. 

Kavinsky had set down his fork as well and was now leaning on his elbows across the table, voice soft—imploring—he asked, “You’re giving your emotions to the forest?”

Adam pushed a large portion of broken egg white through the viscous yellow.

“Your deal was only to be its hands and eyes,” K underlined. “But _now_ you’re just letting it walk in and take whatever it wants?”

“I don’t let it take whatever it wants,” Adam said finally. “You just don’t like it.”

“I don’t,” K said and threw himself back against the booth cushions. 

“Even after everything? All this time?”

“Toleration is not the same as liking,” K said, crossing his arms over his chest. “I thought you would have preferred whatever amount of anger to letting the forest have any more of you.” Then, when Adam was silent, he amended, somewhat snidely, “And you know what they say about gateway drugs....”

“What do you know about it?” Adam demanded, catching K’s eyes and holding them. What _did_ K know of this kind of anger? Kavinsky had to know _something_ , but it didn’t mean anything to Adam if he kept it to himself. He wouldn’t have this conversation with someone who didn’t trust him. With someone he couldn’t trust.

K sighed, but held Adam’s gaze. “My dad tried to kill me.”

“You killed him instead.”

“In self defense,” K confirmed, stating this in such un-self-conscious and calmly factual manner, he might as well have been telling Adam what weather was like outside. 

This had been a fantasy of Adam’s. How many times had he thought about doing it? What would it look like? It would be one day when his dad started lashing out at him, maybe one day when his mom was out hanging the laundry on the line, or one day when his father was going after her—Adam would rise up. He wouldn’t just take it anymore. He would fight back. 

His anger would snap just like his father’s and he would return in kind what Robert Parrish had heaped on them for years until he wasn’t moving anymore. Until he was dead. 

Before he had met Gansey, before he had gotten the Ag scholarship, before he truly thought he could ever leave Henrietta for good, on his darkest nights Adam would let these thoughts hold him until he fell asleep or until he was so restless that he went for a long punishing run. He had to sneak out, but some nights he just couldn’t be in that trailer a second longer. And he would run until he couldn’t think of anything at all, because some nights that fantasy had felt like an inevitability and that scared him more than anything.

“How old were you?” Adam asked.

“The summer before freshman year.”

Adam rubbed his hands together, thinking back to that first conversation he and K had in the basement hallway. 

_I was the chillest. Getting out of Jersey was the best thing I could think of._

“What are you trying to say?” Adam demanded. He didn’t want K to know. 

“Just that...Maybe your dad didn’t try to _kill you_ kill you like mine, but he certainly subscribed to your death by a 365 easy blows installment plan.”

Something fell inside Adam. He knew exactly what K was getting at. Bad blood ran through their veins; their father’s.

“But,” K continued. “letting Cabeswater take your feelings isn’t gonna get rid of you having half your dad’s genes.”

“Did killing your’s fix that for you?”

“No,” K said. “But that hadn’t been the intention.”

Adam grimaced. He should have expected that. K was big on intention. And while that was technically an answer, it didn’t address what Adam felt was the pertinent part of the question. This wasn’t the first time Adam had wondered how Kavinsky was able to remain chill, when if Adam were in his place he would be in a constant battle with his anger. Maybe K took something he’d dreamt up. Or maybe K just had an unnaturally long fuse and one day it would burn out and he would snap just like Adam did all too often. 

Adam would just have to bide his time to find out what was really going on there, because this all seemed somewhat beyond the point. “I set this thing up with Cabeswater.”

“Yeah, I get that.”

“I made this deal for better or worse,” Adam said. “But don't you think it's kinda neat? Even if you don’t like it, I'm surprised you aren’t impressed on how I’m making that place work for me.”

“Yeah, ‘course,” K said. “I wouldn't say anything. It just...well, I'm honestly curious? How's this all gonna work when you're off at your big Ivy League college up in New England?”

“What do you mean?” Adam asked, feeling a slow sort of horror doggedly creeping up from the back of his mind.

“The forest is gonna want you to keep fixing the line and running its errands, even after we graduate—like we’ve been fixing it all summer and the demands haven’t slowed in the slightest. But you’re going to crack cold fusion or something, right? So, how’s that gonna work if you have to be down here moving rocks and shit?”

Like a light had been suddenly and violently shown in his eyes, the question that had been nagging Adam in the back of his mind for the months, one he could never quite put into words, came into glaring focus.

_When did being Cabeswater’s hands and eyes end?_

K was still talking; going on about dependencies, unhealthy coping mechanisms, sustainability, as Adam reeled at the enormity of how _stuck_ he was. Loosing the ability to just hand off emotions he didn't want to feel to Cabeswater wasn't the problem—it had seemed too good to be true from the beginning. No, the problem was the openness of his terms with Cabeswater. 

Adam had _assumed_ his deal with the forest had definite points of start and finish. But the reality was none had been offered the night he bound himself. He had no actual basis for his assumption that the deal would just _end_ when they found Glendower or when he left for college. And if what had happened at Gansey’s parents came from an unintentional shirking on his end of the bargain, there was nothing to say that the forest wouldn’t be able to do that again, even if he went a bit further up the country to New York or Massachusetts.

Kavinsky stopped talking and grabbed Adam’s hands. 

“Babe,” Kavinsky said. 

K’s fingers on his felt grounding. Adam let out a broken exhale. He was trembling all over. His hands were literally shaking in K’s. This was a nightmare.

“Adam,” K said, and then when Adam didn’t answer, he tightened his grip and said, “You got options.”

“Oh, yeah,” Adam let out in a breath of a laugh, still shaky, but finally looking up at him, “What would you do?”

“Me?” K asked sweetly. “I would tell it: I was done.”

Adam raised a solitary eyebrow. 

“And if it didn’t respect my wishes, after everything that’s been done to strengthen it,” he shrugged, his grin going all teeth. “I would light it up.”

Adam scoffed. _He should have known_.

“Shit, man, if you want I’ll burn it down _for you_ ,” K stated. 

“You _are_ a pyrotechnic.”

K shrugged. “We’ve reached a truce of sorts, but that place made my life hell for too many years to just forgive and forget.”

“You think it’s gonna be that easy?”

“It can be.”

It could, if Adam didn’t mind destroying the forest. If Adam was ready to give up this magic; his magic. Adam wasn’t sure he was ready to give that up. Actually, he wasn’t sure he would ever want to give that up. K was right though, he couldn’t do the work for Cabeswater and move ahead with his own future at the same time. And when it came down to it, Adam knew what he would choose. 

“Whatever you want to do about this. We’ve got your back.”

Adam looked at their intertwined hands. The last person he had held hands with was Blue and before that.... he wasn’t sure. Some middle school infatuation, probably. He didn’t want K to let go, but he had to ask. “Even if I can’t do magic anymore?”

Something flinched through Kavinsky’s face, but it was gone in a blink, leaving behind only a furrowed brow and a scrunched up nose. K’s voice didn’t waver when he asked, rather flatly, “What do you think, Ivy?”

“Right,” Adam said, sitting back, fingers sliding mostly from K’s grasp. “Stupid question.”

“It was,” K said, leaning forward, compensating in order to not let go of Adam. “I don’t blame you for asking it though.”

Adam sighed, then turned to look out at the highway, and said, “...I just—”

“You don’t have to,” K said, squeezing Adam’s hands. “I get it. But we have your back. Whatever you’re gonna do.”

“I am not even _in_ your club,” Adam said, glancing back at K out of the corner of his eye.

K shrugged, as if that final step was merely, and had always been, a formality.

 

 

 

 

 

Adam picked up his coffee and took a ruminative sip, “That wasn’t all you brought me here to talk about, was it?”

“No,” K’s lips quirked, either at his resilience or shrewdness, Adam wasn’t sure. “I wanted to ask you a favor.”

“A _favor_?” Adam repeated, incredulous. That was not what he’d been expecting. 

He and K didn’t deal in favors.

“What kind of favor?” Adam asked carefully. He wasn’t sure he wanted K to be in his debt. 

“Nothing too big,” K said, though the way he said it made it sound like he knew it would be something _very_ big. “I want you to swap next Thursday’s shift. To come with us. On a drop.”

For weeks Adam had been expecting such an overture, but after some nebulous point in the past two months when none came, he’d stopped expecting it entirely. _Silly._

“...Something tells me this isn’t for some pick up for another Ag alum.”

“No,” K blew out in a loaded breath. “These guys are some serious shit.”

“Oh?”

“Let me put it to you like this,” K paused. “My dad...well, let's say they've rubbed elbows a few times before.”

That made Adam pause. “What time is it?”

“Eight pm, but we’re meeting up in Arlington because of some bullshit turf war.”

If they had been meeting in Henrietta, Adam could have just ducked the last thirty minutes of his shift, but if they had to drive up to Arlington to meet these guys, he’d have to cut it entirely. _Hence the favor._ “Why me?”

“I want you to come,” K shrugged.

“K,” Adam said.

“I _do_ want you to come,” Kavinsky underlined. “But—”

“There it is ...”

K rolled his eyes, but his lips quirked up in a smile.“I- honestly?...uh didn't expect these two topics to dovetail quite like this,” K admitted. He took a deep breath as if bracing himself for what he would say next. “Wouldn’t going to a drop be a good place to...uh, exorcise some of that bullshit?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You giving your rage to the forest!” K exclaimed, before leaning in and tone going conspiratorial, eyes keen and appraising. “You don't know what you're capable of, do you? You nearly killed me in that clearing and you still don't want to think that you would have let it happen. Even if you won’t admit it, I saw it in your eyes. In that moment before the trees started whispering that creepy shit at you. Hell, you would have done it with your own hands,” K said. “And don't even get me started about whatever you had on Gansey at the Fourth. If looks could kill...well, I think you scalded his face anyway.”

“What does that have to do with going on a drop?”

“I want you to come and just ...be your charming self and channel a little of that anger out.”

Adam felt himself shrink in. He knew what he was. He was painfully aware of what he was capable of. The good and the bad. But it was too hard to believe that someone could want this thing inside him. He couldn't wrap his head around it. That his rage was anything to be worth being afraid of beyond his own fear of losing control.

“Adam.”

“What?”

Kavinsky didn’t say anything, but he held Adam’s gaze and his eyes seemed to say: _I see you._

Adam couldn’t break eye contact with K, even though a part of him desperately wanted to. He felt known. Here with K talking about this. It was too much. 

“It’s a part of you,” Kavinsky continued, eyes boring into Adam uncomfortably. “No way you gonna be free of it. Ignoring it or giving it to the forest will only work for so long...”

That was true. This pathetic rage was a part of him. He’d tried to bury it, only it seemed to be sewn in with the rest of him so he ended up just covering himself with dirt. It was intrinsic, but something he’d willingly ignore, until he needed to quell it. Letting his anger out for a little walk to scare some tough clients wouldn’t help anyone in the slightest.

“I’m not gonna be some prop to stand behind you and make you look tough,” Adam snapped. He didn’t want a part of this.

“Adam,” K said, leaning forward again, his fingers curled around Adam’s wrist. “That’s not—”

“Let go of me,” Adam demanded, standing up.

K pursed his lips, but his fingers went slack around Adam, before dropping entirely. “At least, listen to what I have to say?”

Adam glanced at the doorway. 

“Please,” K said.

Adam flicked his gaze back to Kavinsky and found, despite years of habit and self-defense telling him to get out of there, he couldn’t _just_ leave K hanging; not with that ‘please,’ not when Kavinsky was looking up at Adam like that. 

Adam sat back down.

“I think you’re looking at this from the wrong angle,” K continued, as if Adam hadn’t gotten up at all. “Like, I guess, I don’t mean _wrong_ —” K amended seeing the look on Adam’s face. “Just not useful? Like yeah, it’s a pain. It hurts you and others and in the moment it does nothing, but if you channel all that built up shit towards something else. Use it for good—”

“Good? You want me to intimidate your clients,” Adam stated.

“No, I want you to develop a healthy coping mechanism,” K corrected. 

“You really should go into psychology,” Adam sighed. 

“Ulgh, no,” K said, in childish disgust. “I could maybe do mentoring?—on a part time basis—but like eight years of school? For a piece of paper? So I can listened to people’s problems? Why the fuck—”

“Alright, fine,” Adam scoffed.

“As your friend,” K said, getting back to his point. 

Adam looked out the window.

“Hey,” K said, putting two fingers on the side of his chin and turned his eyes back to him. “As someone who cares about your health and wellbeing, I want you to try this.”

Adam pressed his lips together.

“You bottle this stuff up and where does it go? That kind of rage is toxic to the soul if you don’t let it out every once in a while— _in a controlled manner_ ,” K rushed out when Adam glared at him. “You know the bad consequences otherwise.”

Adam knew bad consequences. He thought of a box of scattered nails on the ground. The blood on Caleb’s lips. The wall in Blue’s room. The scabs that had formed between his knuckles in the night. He wondered if _that_ was why he had those uncontrollable outbursts; this continual build-up K was talking about. He finally asked, “You’ve learned this first hand?”

“It’s an ongoing solution,” K shrugged. “What works will....what? Evolve with you? But if you can find something that sticks. For me, sometimes lighting things on fire can be a cathartic experience. You could give that a try too.”

Adam looked over at him with a near disgruntled expression. 

“Or,” Kavinsky said. “People say running helps.” 

“It does,” Adam scoffed. “Somewhat.”

“Sure,” K allowed. “But I never see you run, so how do you release all that frustration and negativity?”

Adam had honestly never been concerned with releasing his negativity. Only suppressing it. All he cared about was making sure no one else saw it. Whatever damage it was causing inside him in the meantime was negligible. It seemed Kavinsky was more concerned with the long term effects of all of Adam’s stress on his body than Adam himself. 

Point of fact, Adam had never cared. He’d known when he’d picked up cigarettes as a tiny thirteen year old they were hazardous to his health. But they were such good stress relievers, that whatever years they were taking off his life seemed like an even trade for the relief they provided him right then. 

The inclination to just smash things was one Adam had never really given into, though it was there too. It was one of the things he envied Ronan, ironically. Being as rich as Ronan meant that he didn’t have to feel bad if he acted on his impulse to wreck his stuff. The fact that he had stuff to break at all, spoke to this; and if Ronan felt like smashing his dishes, he could and would have no issue in replacing them. Adam though had bought his single plate, bowl, cup, and setting of silverware from the second hand store and was not in a place to simply run out and buy another set if he threw his one ceramic bowl against the wall in a rage.

“Don't you want to turn it into something ...productive?” K asked. “Something good?”

Adam had nothing to do with the anger he had managed to smother down. This was the first time it had been brought to his attention he _should_ do something with it.

“Intimidating your buyers in a drug deal is good?” Adam asked, again, raising his eyebrows.

K shrugged. 

“I'm guessing you don't like these guys much.”

“They're tough shit,” K said. “But nothing we haven’t handled before. They’ve come to me for years. I just figured if you knew these people were horrible and you didn't have the obligation of seeing them everyday and being civil...you might give yourself permission to... release.”

Adam wondered when he had become so desperate, so afraid of his anger controlling him, that he was considering giving this crack-pot advice a chance; willing to trust Kavinsky’s slight of hand. The turning over of the ugliness of Adam’s anger to reveal something completely different. A possibility.

K’s hands were folded together, still on the worn patterned formica table-top. 

“How'd you twist this so that me getting angry would sound like a healthy thing?”

“Because it is,” K said. “So I’ve shifted your paradigm?” he asked, and there was that self-deprecating twist to his lips at his turn of phrase.

Adam didn’t say anything.

“Look, I'm not gonna pressure you or anything. You already told me you weren't interested in a drop and I already told you there was nothing to worry about legally. We don't have to rehash it. What I'm saying is the offer is still on the table and maybe now you see my reasons for thinking it might be helpful to you–well, beyond the obvious.”

_The cut,_ Adam thought.

“If you're not gonna take me up on it, fine. But you should probably find some other method of like releasing it all. Because I really don’t think dissociating any time you get angry for the rest of your life is a good plan,” K continued. “Channel it. Use it.”

“To your end?”

“Or go for a run.”

Adam kept staring at K. _His anger to K’s end._ It sounded like a diabolical combo. But it only worked if he could do what K was suggesting—channeling his anger when he wasn’t angry seemed more than somewhat contradictory as he was always repressing it. Even if K _had_ convinced him—he hadn’t but, if he had—Adam wasn’t sure he’d be able to reverse his every instinct. Adam still couldn’t fathom the transformation.

Then K shrugged, “You gotta better offer?”

Adam shook his head, rueful. “What’s the take?”

“A little over eight G’s.”

“Eight thousand?” Adam asked. “They drive all the way out to meet you personally for eight thousand dollars worth of drugs?”

“Each.”

“What?”

“Lamonuier drives down to Arlington for fifty thousand worth of drugs. Which makes the take for each of us over eight grand.”

Adam’s eyes had snapped to Kavinsky’s at the mention of fifty grand. “And you–for one night?”

“All profit margin, babe, remember?”

“Right. I...” Adam started and then stopped. He sat back. 

“Don’t answer just yet,” K said. “I haven’t told you the half of it. These guys are like hard.”

“You keep saying that.”

“They’re on the FBI’s watch list.”

Adam let his eyebrows rise of their own accord.

“This isn’t like a regular old drop for a couple of Ag fucks. This is like serious business. These guys...” K trailed off as if he didn’t know where to begin.

“Are some serious shit, yeah,” Adam said. “Look, I haven’t even been on one of your normal drops.”

K shook his head, dismissal plain. “I’m not worried about that. You’d be a natural. It’s just—”

“I’d be a natural?” Adam repeated.

K took a deep breath.

“Oh sure,” Adam said, flatly. Then after a beat of watching K, asked, “You don’t think I’d do anything—violent, do you?”

“I would not ask you to hurt anyone,” K said, quick and fervent. “I’m saying you shouldn’t be afraid to let them see you _could_.”

“I thought these guys were so tough,” Adam said. He wouldn’t be too impressed with anyone who was intimidated by a seventeen year old boy. 

K shrugged. “You're a force to be reckoned with.”

Adam knew K was referring to how Adam had controlled Cabeswater; the cold-bloodedness he’d seen in the clearing. K wanted him for this drop, but Adam was laughable. He was a boy who couldn’t control his temper; not something to be used or wielded. They were still talking about two different things anyway. 

The only thing Adam found impressive about himself in this respect, was the patience he had cultivated in the careful work of distilling his anger. Stealing it away where only he could see and trying desperately to arc it away from those he cared about. Adam was pathetic.

“I would owe you,” K said. “But I don’t want your answer right away. Think about it. The drop isn’t till the fourteenth.”

“You give me the hard sale and then tell me to be cautious?”

“There’s a risk,” K shrugged. “It’s not a very big one in my opinion. But it’s there all the same.”

 

 

 

 

 

Adam was grateful the waitress came over a few minutes later, telling them they needed to settle the tab and clear out. He and K had done more talking than eating and his eggs and potatoes had globualized in an unappetizing cold pile. Adam hated wasting food like that. 

Clouds were rolling across the sky at a rapid clip and there was pressure in the air that indicated a late brewing summer storm when they stepped out of the Barbecue It. There was now a “CLOSED” qualification lit up below the neon sign.

“I can’t believe you took me to lunch here,” Adam said as they reached the car. 

“Prime romantic spot in Henrietta,” K said, waggling his eyebrows from the other side of the Evo. 

“Oh what? That’s your version of a date?” Adam asked, laughing as he opened the car door.

“No,” K said emphatically, climbing in. “But let me know when you want me to show you what a real date with me looks like!”

“I shudder to think what you’d come up with if given the chance.”

“You wound me,” K said, putting the car in reverse.

“Yeah, that cut you real deep, I can tell,” Adam said with a roll of his eyes. 

“One of these days, Poison Ivy, you’ll give in to my charms!”

 

 

 

 

 

The afternoon before school started was savored in K’s basement. Adam had worked his opening shift at Boyd’s and found the lot of them lazing in front of the projector when he stopped by K’s after. 

Adam commandeered the coffee table, sitting on the floor, and began to lay out his folders and notebooks. 

“Ivy, you never let up, do you?” Skov asked, hitting a complicated sequence of buttons on the controller in order to beat Swan.

Adam felt that was slightly hypocritical given that Jiang, who was sprawled out on the floor sketching, was totally working on another tattoo. He glanced up when he felt Adam’s eyes on him and gave him an ironic eye-roll before going back to his design.

“Actually, this is all for Glendower,” Adam said, unfolding a topographical map of the area. With the cave Cabeswater had shown them now inaccessible, Gansey’s next step for them was to find another way in. Somehow he’d gotten the idea that they might be able to find another cave that would connect into the caverns of the one in the shadow of the dreaming tree. “Do any of you know any other caves around here?”

“Really? More cave crap?” Skov whined, falling back dramatically in his seat. 

“Are you sure you should keep messing around with all that after what happened?” Proko asked, sitting forward and grabbing the controller from Skov’s limp defeated hands. 

Adam gave a dubious hum. He wasn’t happy with the new plan particularly either. If he were at all superstitious, he would have taken the cave-in as a bad omen. As it was Adam was just becoming more reticent to invest time in this wild goose chase. There was after all no guarantee there would be a favor. But he still _needed_ one and Gansey had wanted his help.

At some point during a hallway conversation in the past months, Kavinsky had asked him what he was aiming to get in terms of Glendower’s favor.

Rather snidely, Adam had wondered, “What exactly do you think I would ask for?”

“A different life,” K shrugged. “Sleeping kings aren’t the only way you could get that though.”

“How could you dream me that?”

“As much as he could,” K had said, and then with a frown continued with, “I mean unless you want to become one of those conceited princes that make up most of Ag—”

“No,” Adam said. The wording of the favor was something that he’d had spent a great deal of time turning over in his mind. Being born rich wasn’t what he wanted. He didn’t want a re-do. In spite of all the horrible things that had happened to Adam, he wouldn’t ask to be a different person and there was no way for him to be born wealthy and still be _Adam Parrish_.

“Then you're only looking at a change in present circumstances and insurance that it will stay,” K had said, simply. “And you’re already on your way to fixing that up yourself.”

K hadn’t exactly been offering to dream him anything. He was just angling for Adam to give up on Gansey entirely, if only so he could convince him to take his dream-sharing pill. When Adam called him out on the ploy, K had merely grinned around his black cigarette. 

But Kavinsky had been right. Adam _was_ doing alright by himself. So he didn’t need to ask for a better future. Now the favor had morphed into the question of how to be rid of Cabeswater. If only because Adam would prefer not to involve the threat of fire, _again_.

So Adam poured over the maps and data sheets he had with him, while the others took turns playing _Super Smash Bros_ , until K got up for a smoke and Adam followed. 

“You ready?” K asked, after they had lit up.

“For tomorrow?” Adam clarified. 

K nodded. “You better be.”

Adam shrugged. The run-in with Peugeot last week had only been a soft opening for the kind of comments they were in for come tomorrow. The rest of the Ag student body would no longer have to take it on rumor that Adam was running with Kavinsky’s pack, but that was assuming anyone cared. Adam had a feeling K was merely becoming bias. 

“Just brace yourself, babe,” K said, eyes intent on Adam. “You’re gonna be front and center.”

 

 

 

 

 

act ii  
and i can’t recall it lightly at all, but i know i’m going in

 

 

 

 

 

Back in July, Adam had thrown his name in the lottery for the Ag student parking spaces. Their parking lot was more than big enough to host all of the student’s cars. The lottery was more a gamble about how close to the school buildings they would be able to park. No one wanted the spots on the outer edge, closest to the Ag fencing and furthest from the main hall and an even greater distance from the rest of the scattered campus.

Adam’s parking space, which had been mailed to him along with his schedule and reprinted Aglionby student handbook, was in the first row, but at the very end. Walking closer to the main hall, he found the pack clustered around K’s mitsu.

Skov was playing hacky-sack with Swan and the others were milling around trying to postpone the inevitable march to first period. Or so it would look to the other students—really they were just waiting for Adam. Technically smoking wasn’t allowed on campus, and while the student lot was _on_ campus, this rule was not as strictly enforced as it should have been.

K offered Adam a drag on one of his black cigarettes. Adam accepted, taking a long pull before handing it back. 

“Alright, can't make Poison Ivy late now,” Swan said, catching the hacky-sack 

“Don't try to pawn that off on him,” Proko said. “If Ivy were in such a great hurry, he would have said something himself.”

“I _don't_ want to be late,” Adam said. “You don’t either.”

Proko shrugged as if he were largely indifferent on this point.

“This is an A Day boys and girls,” K said, sliding off the hood and reaching into his back pocket. “So let’s all pull out our schedules and make sure we know where we’re going.”

Adam knew where he was going, but he joined in on the comparing of unfolded and crumpled paper by slipping out his Ag issued peechee and pulling out his schedule.

“Look at you with your crisp papers trying to show us up,” Skov said, glaring at Adam’s folder with exaggerated distaste that was perfectly genuine. 

“Never change, Ivy,” Swan said, bumping shoulders with him.

Adam already knew that he started the day with Latin before chem with K, but it turned out he had math with Skov, and English with Swan. Adam had a feeling it was going to be a good year. But from the moment they walked through the main hall doors, people were staring. It probably didn’t help that the pack was taking up most of the hallway by walking side-by-side and other students needed to get into their lockers, but it also definitely had something to do with Adam walking between K and Swan. 

“This is like some ‘All Eyez on Me’ shit,” Skov said with an amused laugh.

“When’d you start listening to Tupac?”

“Heyyy,” Skov said affronted. “I have a diverse musical taste! Tupac was a genius!”

At the main staircase, they started to separate. Proko and Jiang coming with Adam up to the second floor, the others leaving the main hall entirely to disperse around the campus. Adam got to his classroom with just enough time to slide into the first open seat he saw and take out his books, but not his pencils, before their new Latin prof swept in and the first bell rung. 

 

 

 

 

 

This being senior Latin, when the bell rung the other boys were still packing up, back to talking about their summers. They all knew the campus pretty well by now and were, generally, in no big rush. A few students got out the door immediately, having quietly packed up with grumbles about having to go all the way across the school grounds—a not inconsiderable distance on foot—for their next class and with only a seven minute passing time. Adam wasn’t going that far.

“I can’t believe you were later than me,” Gansey said. He had come over to stand next to Adam’s desk.

“Why’s that?” Adam asked glancing up before putting his books back in his bag.

“The pig stalled again. I had to wrestle it off the road.”

“The alternator?”

“Right!” Gansey said. Adam could hear the excitement in his voice. “When I popped the hood, it was just hanging off. Completely unusable. Switching it out wasn’t that hard, but you wouldn’t believe how much trouble I had getting one though. It was like there was a run on that specific size at the auto shop.”

“Parrish!” a familiar voice called from the open door. Adam, who was still ducked over his backpack, felt more than saw the collective head turn. When Adam glanced up, there was Kavinsky, white shades and all, arms braced on the door-jam and smirking something vicious. His eyes lingered on Adam for a second before he called “Let’s go, babe!” and disappeared from view. 

“ _K_ ,” Adam half-groaned under his breath, drawing out the letter long as he scrambled after Kavinsky. “Sorry, Gansey.”

Every one of the remaining boys in Latin were staring at him by the time he made it out into the hall. K hadn’t gone far though and Adam bumped shoulders with him when he caught up. 

“Did you really cut the last five minutes of first period to dramatically show Gansey up?”

“That assumes I went at all,” Kavinsky pointed out lewdly.

“The first day is the easiest.”

“And the boringest,” K shrugged. but when he didn't actually brag about skipping, Adam took it to mean that he had gone after all. The whole pack had a better rate of attendance than Ronan and it wasn’t only for K's drug racket. 

Gossip traveled through Ag like water through a sieve. Adam didn't deceive himself to imagine the other Aglionby boys had any interest in _him_ , but they were interested in the tension between Gansey and Kavinsky. Adam’s change in apparent allegiance was sure to be something talked about because it was usually the other way around. Boys met Gansey and turned for the better. They might flirt with the idea of joining Kavinsky, but they did not _actually fall in_ with him. Last year, there had been a few pools amongst the betting types of if and how Ronan would fall in with K's sort and out of Gansey's favor. Apparently, it was a commonly held belief one could not straddle the line between the two.

Adam wondered how well he was doing on that front.

“Ivyyyyyyyy,” K said drawing out the name, when Adam had been quiet for the rest of the walk out of main hall.

“What?”

“I’m just gonna say it. That was not me interfering with your other friendships.”

Adam refrained from a comment.

"I mean I could have said a lot of things to Dick. Stuff that's  _true_! Like why’d he have to get his phys ed waived? Jiang has a good reason but him? What? He’s gotta have more time to go Indiana Jonesing? Seriously, why can’t he skip like the rest of us?”

“I’m sensing some hostility.”

“But I didn't say anything to his royal highness when I could have. _And_ ,” K said with even more pride. “I didn’t punch Lynch in the face.”

Adam merely shot him a raised eyebrow.

“What? You know I could have!”

“Thin line,” Adam said dubiously.

“You know what they say,” K said, with endless fondness. “If you only feel alive when you're driving on the edge; why drive anywhere else?”

Adam considered him for a moment. “That's not actually a saying.”

“Maybe you should make it into one.”

“They wouldn’t talk as much if you didn’t do shit like that.”

“Who said getting them to talk wasn’t my intention?”

Adam whipped his head around to stare at K.

“If I don’t make a big deal out of you being with us, what do you think would happen?” K asked. When Adam shrugged he continued, “They’d think you were just hanging around us—Like just tagging along because you _think_ you can run with us and not because you’re actually _with_ us. And that is a ...uh maligning of character.”

Adam could see the logic there. It was a closed group. Outsiders didn’t run with Joey K unless they were _in_. There was something pathetic about hanging off a group that merely tolerated your presence.

“I’m making a point,” K continued, looking at Adam over his shades. “You’re going to let me.”

“It would seem so,” Adam said with a sigh as he followed K into the chemistry lab. K set his bag on the middle table in the second row, before shooting Adam a look that asked ‘this good for you?’

Adam nodded, setting his own bag down. He didn’t sit though, and after watching K for several seconds, said, “If we're really doing this, you better not screw me over.”

K frowned at him. “You don't think I'm good for it?”

“You know what I mean,” Adam sighed, shaking his head. “I know you can be, but that only works when you're here.”

Adam knew K got the material. Betz, the chem prof, had a habit of posting the scores of the tests they had at the end of every chapter on the bulletin board just outside the lab. Adam’s initials were usually at the top, but Kavinsky’s were just a few below half the time—when he bothered to show up for the tests. There was the option of a retake but those scores were never publicized. Still, Adam knew that Kavinsky was a better chemistry student than most of their class. 

If there was a subject K had a natural aptitude for, it was the sciences. Little wonder with his booming drug business and recreational biology experiments. Even if according to Adam’s understanding of exactly how dreaming worked, K didn’t have to know anything about either of these things for his dream creatures or drugs to work to any given standard. However, Kavinsky was such a dedicated forger that he liked his dream objects to act as real as possible, regardless of whether or not they were actually possible.

Adam’s concern was more Kavinsky’s relationship with school in general. K’s ideas about school weren’t the same as Ronan’s, which was to say Kavinsky saw a use in it—but senoritis was a thing. K would never skip without at least some of the pack, but it wasn’t like he would have a hard time convincing them. It wasn’t like Kavinsky needed Aglionby. It would be so easy for him to just not go if he didn’t feel like it, and that made Adam wary. On the other hand, Kavinsky enjoyed selling his forgeries. The Ag boys who boarded here were essentially a captive audience; stuck in Henrietta with nothing to do but study and take up campus offered extracurriculars. It was little wonder why K’s drugs and parties were widely held in high esteem. So while K did skip classes, it was not as many as one might think as a majority of Joey K’s clients were kids from Aglionby. If he wanted to sell to them, he had to be available to take their orders. Not everyone had K’s number. Not everyone wanted it on their parents phone bill.

Even if Kavinsky had a decent attendance record, he still skipped and Adam needed to partner with someone who would _always_ show.

“You wanted to try your hand at being a bookworm,” Adam said and then held up his pinky. “With me or against me?”

“Thought we agreed ultimatums are shit?"

“Is that a no?” Adam asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Fuck no, Ivy,” K said, returning Adam’s grin and hooking their pinkies. “I’m with you.”

Other students had begun filing in more steadily and with more of the same chat that had been dying down when Adam had walked into Latin seconds before their suspicious new teacher. 

There was an awkward moment of eye contact between him and Gansey, when Gansey had stepped into the lab and almost immediately saw Adam and K sharing a table. K was talking to the pair of guys who had taken the station in front of them and Adam felt as if Gansey would continue to stare at him with that ridiculously hurt expression forever. Or, at least, till the start of class, if K had not begun nudging and demanding, “Ivy! _Babe—_ ”

Gansey moved off to ask Jackson Aster if he wouldn’t mind partnering this year and Adam turned, “What?”

“Tell them about the project you roped us into over the summer,” K said. 

They’d discussed this. Obviously, there was no way to tell the other students at Ag that the pack had spent a majority of the summer cleaning up a _ley_ line. But the essence of what they were doing could be explained without reference to anything magical. _Trail clearing_ , Swan had said and they’d all agreed that was close enough. Adam gave the spiel. How he’d been in contact with some people at the State Parks Office. How he’d organized a trail clearing and how no one had shown—not even Lynch, K had added. How Adam had gone through a mental list of other Ag boys in Henrietta for the summer and came to Kavinsky. How he’d asked if K and the pack wanted to help. Kavinsky had said why not? They’d done some creek restoration, but a lot of clearing invasive species along the less used trails. 

“I can’t imagine you getting your hands dirty like that, Kavinsky.”

“Believe it,” K said pointing a finger at Cabot. 

“Scratch that then,” he amended. “I can’t see _Jiang_ doing that.”

K held up his hands, as if to say there he could not comment.

“He was mostly up in Charlottesville,” Adam allowed. 

“Do you want to major in Environmental Justice?” Hyde asked Adam, appearing genuinely interested in his response.

“I wouldn’t have pegged you for law,” Cabot cut in.

“No,” Adam agreed. “Engineering, but I am interested in green design.”

The two in front of them nodded. 

“It’ll look good on your college apps, regardless,” Cabot pointed out as Betz walked in.

He took one look at the new configuration of lab partners and asked, “Is it wrong that I am already dreading this year before it's even begun?” He was staring pointedly at Adam and K, so if anyone hadn't noticed the shake up they were now looking on, curious. “Well, isn’t this interesting? The top of our class pairing with Mr. Kavinsky this year?” Betz asked Adam. “You gonna straighten him out?”

“I don't know if that's possible, sir.”

“Anything’s possible. Mr. Kavinsky here has a lot of potential,” Betz said, but then noticing some imperceptible shift in K turned his attention to him. “Though you probably don't want to hear that it should be put toward your education for the thousandth time? So we’ll skip that. I'll allow it so long as you don't drag down Mr. Parrish.”

“I wouldn't dream of it, sir,” K said, humor evident.

There was an undignified snort from behind them. Adam and Kavinsky turned. 

It was such an un-Gansey like noise to have been made, that Adam wasn't in fact sure Gansey _had_ made it. But all the other boys around him were back to their own talk, probably of where they had been over the summer. Gansey was the only one still obviously paying attention to their exchange with Betz.

“Something you want to say there, Dick?” K asked, as he eased his chair back to lean on just two legs to better look around Adam, his smirk horrible.

Gansey glared.

“Mr. Kavinsky, would you please refrain from a balancing act with your chair in my lab,” Betz said. “I think it's time we ceased the pleasantries and got on with role.” This was met with a chorus of moans and groans. “Yes, we still have a minute, but why waste it, when I see you're all here anyway?”

 

 

 

 

 

Part of the reason Aglionby could get away with charging as much as they did, aside from it being a prestigious prep school, was because lunch was included. Obviously for the boys who lived in the dorms all meals were provided. But Adam didn’t stay in the dorms and the first semester of Adam’s freshman year, he had made an appointment with the bursar, hoping to find a way to cut lunch out—anything to make the tuition more bearable. The man, who had been on the interview panel for his scholarship review, knew just how heavily Adam was relying on financial aide and while he was sympathetic, unfortunately there was no way to opt out. 

That had been disheartening, but Adam soon got used to working after school, doing his homework in the late nights, and operating on the bare minimum of sleep. It wasn’t bad food either. Actually, those lunches were usually the best meals of Adam’s day anyway. 

Last year he could only imagine how self-conscious he would have been just sitting across a table from Gansey every day with nothing but his books and Gansey’s plate of pasta salad, green salad, and a quiche slice. It would have been just another thing to argue over. 

He spotted Gansey now, in line for the chicken on a bed of mixed wild rices. Adam didn’t see Ronan. 

“Eyes ahead, Ivy,” Skov said. Adam turned back and saw Jiang moving off. The lady who always scanned their ID cards was looking at him expectantly. Adam moved ahead letting her scan and then following Jiang as he weaved through the tables. Jiang had been rather sullen when he and Skov had met up with him after math. He just muttered something about fucking ESL. K and Proko, having come from English together, had already staked out a table closer to the bay of windows overlooking Ag’s green but not right up against them. Swan had been in drama and Adam had seen him talking with Ryang outside the entrance to the lunch line. 

He came in seven minutes later, after everyone had burned out on all the really juicy gos and before he even sat down, Swan said, “K, you will never believe who they brought in to teach Latin.”

“I saw him,” K said.

“But did he see _you_?” Swan asked low and knowing, as he leaned across the table. 

Kavinsky shook his head, a rueful smirk tweaking his lips. 

“You _know_ Greenmantle?” Adam asked.

“I've sold to him before,” K said, shaking up his chocolate milk.

Adam gave him a disbelieving look.

“Don't believe me?” K asked, eyes glinting to match his shark's grin. “I kid you not when we met, the first thing he said was to ask me if I was really the guy to come to for ‘ _narcotics_.’”

“He'd been joking,” Proko cut in. “Just wanted some clean speed.”

“ _That guy_ does speed?”

“Well, he only bought off me once,” K said. “I doubt it.”

“Our hypothesis,” Skov said. “Was that he and his wife wanted to have a sex marathon.”

Adam gave a surveying glance around the table, wondering if they weren’t all having a go at him. 

“It is great for stamina,” K allowed with a shrug.

“Ugh,” Swan said, setting down his sandwich in huff. “Please don't put images of my Latin teacher getting it on in my head.”

“I second that,” Adam said. 

“Really? I wouldn’t mind seeing them,” K said. 

“I hear his wife’s a bombshell,” Skov added and they bumped fists across the table.

“You are so lucky you’re all in Russian,” Swan said. 

“Why?" Jiang snorted. “You think one of them would proposition a three-way?” 

Adam let out a shocked huff of a laugh, and said, “That’d be a conflict of interest if I ever heard one.” 

“You wanna talk about a conflict of interest,” K asked, wrapping an arm around Adam’s shoulders, tone going conspiratorial as he leaned in. “Rumor has it _he_ was the one who put out the hit on Lynch senior.”

Adam’s head snapped around to stare at K. 

“Oh yeah,” K said, not moving back even though their faces were now too close. “I’ve sold to him, but so did Lynch’s dad. Think you already know the story about Lynch refusing to sell that...ehm, thing to him.”

“...someone sent a hitman with a tire iron.”

“That someone is the guy they got to teach you’re Latin classes,” K said. “Or so the rumors go.”

Disconcerted Adam was glad for K’s arm around him, steadying him. He broke eye contact to look across the lunch room till he’d clocked Gansey and Ronan at a table conveniently within eyeshot of the pack. All he could see was the gloomy slump of Ronan’s shoulders and Gansey’s head cocked to the side in thought. 

They didn’t know about Greenmantle. 

K squeezed Adam’s bicep before releasing him and going back to his sandwich. 

“More like he bribed the president,” Proko put in from K’s other side. “Just so he could rub it in Lynch’s face.”

K made a dismissive clicking noise—too much Ronan for one conversation—and Skov started sharing some anecdote from his Romantic Poets course.

Adam’s eyes darted back over to Gansey’s table and caught on Ronan’s shorn head. 

Adam didn’t want to think of what Ronan would do if he found out.

 

 

 

 

 

Despite K’s warning, Adam hadn’t truly expected the first day of school to be such a coup. Maybe Adam should have anticipated more of an uproar, because they had been a thing for so long; Gansey, Lynch, Parrish. There hadn't been any indication it would end, but with things the way they were between them, Adam didn’t see how it couldn’t.

As he and Swan past out the double doors of the dining hall into an early afternoon unblemished by clouds, Adam could hear snatches of conversation. Everything from rumors of Kavinsky’s black eye to speculation about him. Of course there'd been some mumblings as he walked to his classes during the first three periods. Kavinsky's escort from Latin was weird, but not unheard of—K’s forgeries allowed him to mingle with all stratas of the Ag population with little suspicion—but it was their absurd partnering in chem, Adam sitting with Skov in math, and most importantly the unequivocal evidence of lunch, that had sent Ag into a veritable uproar.

Most boys were being circumspect about watching them as they passed towards Hopper Hall to get to AP Senior English, but they were still looking, still talking. Adam did not care to be the center of these people's attention, but his unease went beyond that. As much as he needed Ag, as much as he excelled here, he was never _comfortable_.

“What are you thinking?” Swan asked. 

“Why?”

“Your expression.”

“It's just...” Adam paused. “A bit overwhelming to be surrounded by all these over-fed predators again.”

“You're telling me?” Swan laughed giving Adam a _look_.

“Yeah,” Adam huffed with a rueful nod. “I'm telling you.”

Swan tore his eyes off Adam after several more seconds to stare at the other side of the quad instead. 

“You want my perspective?” Swan asked. 

Adam nodded.

“You’ve got an edge,” Swan started.

Adam didn’t feel like he had an edge.

“You’re a young white man,” Swan said. “You don’t even realize how much that helps. Like you don’t even know,” Swan paused, letting that sink in before he continued. “You’re smart. You’ve got a good work ethic and drive. Yeah, there’s their money and family connections. But you have to remember we aren’t even actually competing with all of Ag. Sure you’re competing with them _now_ , but when you get out of here you’re going into a STEM field, right? How many of these other guys are doing that? Sure, some of them, but most are gonna be lawyers, wall street financiers, or working their way up Dad’s company. The ones that you _will_ go up against, of course they have their own tricks. They have to eat somehow. But _that_ ,” Swan said, opening the door to the out building, “Doesn’t mean they are gonna be able to eat you.”

Adam considered this as they climbed the stairs. They pushed open the doors onto the second floor, stepping into a sleepy hush, which was promptly broken by a voice somewhere ahead in the hall, “You saw what they did to Peugeot?” 

“I thought he was fucking with me,” another boy said. “When he said Kavinsky’s crew started the fight over some shit he said ‘bout _Parrish_. I mean no one believed him—”

The voices halted abruptly when Adam and Swan rounded the corner and the boys who’d been talking caught sight of them.

“Anyway,” Swan sighed, turning to Adam. “I hear were gonna be doing a unit on South American lit this year and I am so hype.”

 

 

 

 

 

“You didn’t say your deal extended to classes,” a voice on the other side of his open locker door said. 

“We haven’t been saying much at all,” Adam pointed out, not looking over.

Gansey made a resigned kind of huffing noise, and said, “I can't imagine you agreeing to that back in July.”

Adam didn't say anything. Back in July, when he’d agreed to run with K, it had been hard to conceptualize what that even meant. He couldn't deny the terms had looked bleak on that sunny morning. But they had come a long way. This wasn't something he merely had to bare. And with how strained things had been with Gansey and now Ronan too... Adam certainly wasn't going to make it into an issue. He wondered if the humdrum normalcy of the Ag school day had been what Gansey had been hoping would jolt their friendship out of the cardiac arrest it had been in for weeks now.

“I don’t suppose you’ve heard what everyone’s been saying about you?”

Adam's eyes snapped to Gansey sharply. “Since when,” Adam asked, “do you concern yourself with _gossip_?”

“Have you heard it?”

“I doubt they’re saying anything all that different from when _we_ started hanging out.”

“Well, _that_ but also-”

“Parrish!” 

Adam didn't turn at Proko’s call; eyes still boring into Gansey, who was not quite glaring down the hall, not exactly—assumably at Proko—but it was as close as Gansey let himself in mixed company.

“‘But also’ what?” Adam pressed.

“That this isn’t some stunt. That Kavinsky’s serious about you having joined his ‘pack,’” Gansey said and rubbed at his eyebrow. “They’re saying he got that black eye in a fight they’d started over you.”

“He did.”

“Yo, Poison Ivy!” Skov shouted long and sing-songy down the corridor, over the bustling just-after-school traffic. Adam turned with the other students, who were trying to see who had earned a new, bizarre nickname, and saw Proko, Skov, and Jiang loitering in the doorway to the back stairs that led out to the student parking lot.

“Give me a few minutes,” he shouted to them. 

“We’ll give you _one_ , man!” Proko shouted back.

Adam went back to sorting what he needed in and out of his backpack. Gansey was still leaning on the locker, watching him. The specified minute had come and gone and Adam was just about done stuffing his over-coat in his bag—the mornings were chill enough to need it, but that burned off fast—when Gansey spoke again.

“I'd hoped...” Gansey started. He was looking over Adam's shoulder, expression turning friendly, implacable, but Adam knew it wasn't deeply felt. He could feel the other students staring at them. Gansey recovered, eyes snapping to Adam’s, “I had hoped we would have this at least.”

This was a glimpse of the Gansey he fallen in friendship with, who had pulled him into this fantastic search for a Welsh king. It felt like he hadn't seen his friend in so long. Hardly a surprise, since this was more than they had said to each other—more real words about _them_ and _not Glendower_ —in months. Adam wondered how Gansey thought they could magically revert back to _that_ without a more substantial intervention than his mere desire. Sure, Cabeswater might respond to him when he used _that_ voice, but Gansey was going to have to give a lot more for Adam to forgive him.

“Well,” Adam said tiredly, as he jerked the zipper of his backpack closed by increments. “I gotta go.”

Gansey gave him a weird, funny look. “They aren’t rushing you.”

“Yeah and they won't,” Adam said. Then he shrugged when Gansey continued to give him that look. “K wants me to take it easy.”

There was the un-Gansey-like snort again. “I'm sure he does.”

“Christ, Gansey, not like that,” Adam scoffed. “He helps. It's a good thing actually.”

That brought Gansey up short, his eyes snapping back to Adam, really looking at him for what felt like the first time in forever. When he'd recovered enough, Gansey asked, “You like spending time with Kavinsky now?”

“Is that so unthinkable?”

“And the rest of them?”

“We’re _friends_ , Gansey,” Adam said, not bothering to conceal his annoyance. What did Gansey think? He’d heard him rather offhandedly refer to K as soulless, but surely he hadn't believed Adam would pull away from the group just to spite _him_? That was an alarming degree of self-absorption, even for Gansey.

Adam shouldered his pack. When he looked up at him a final time, Gansey had that troubled expression on his face again. 

“I’ll talk to you later, Gans,” Adam said.

 

 

 

 

 

“What was that about?” Proko asked, as they busted out the doors into the parking lot.

“Gansey wanted to ask me if I’d heard the rumors.”

“Have you?” Skov asked, suddenly and intensely animated. When Adam didn't immediately respond, Skov took that a 'no.' “There are some pretty good ones.”

“Like what? Me being a gold-digger again?”

“Not so much,” Skov said, eyeing Adam with a distinctly licentious gleam. “Is that what Dick told you they were saying?”

Adam shrugged. Gansey hadn’t gone into much elaboration. But there had been some talk of that kind of thing last year when he and Gansey started hanging out. 

“These boys know what that kind of thing looks like when—” he made a fingers rubbing together gesture, the universal indicative of money— _bribes_ and kept boys, “and they know _that_ doesn't come without its strings.”

Adam had thought as much. 

“Sure, it's been mentioned but nobody really believes _K_ —” Skov said slyly, leaning in close to Adam, “needs to pay for it.”

Adam had thought it would be just his reputation under criticism, not K's. He already knew people thought he could be bought, but Adam had forgotten that it would be _Joey K_ who’d be doing the buying, which put an entirely different spin on it all.

“What about—?” Adam pantomimed smoking.

“A drug debt?” Skov asked. “Sorry to say but everyone knows how much K charges and _you_ couldn’t afford it at street price. Like practically speaking, how would you have gotten your second hit?”

Adam was stopped from saying something ungenerous when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye, turning he saw Noah had appeared to walk beside them. 

“Hey, man!” Adam said. 

“Hey!” Noah said. He bumped shoulders with Adam before the others welcomed Noah in the pack’s traditional greeting and the group reshuffled so Skov could be next to him. 

Practically speaking, the most likely assumption the other Ag boys would have made about Adam and his new position in the pack, would suggest that he wouldn’t have needed to pay for the drugs at all. They would have been an investment on K’s part. Because if Kavinsky couldn’t get Lynch, the next best thing would be to take Parrish. And how would he get Adam? Kavinsky would _give_ him the drugs till he was good and hooked. Good and his.

Adam wasn’t about to give voice to any of that. Such a horrible insinuation against K’s character sounded like something Gansey would say about Kavinsky. Adam wasn’t sure it even had any basis in Kavinsky’s reputation. 

Proko was looking at Adam like he knew exactly what he was thinking. Something guilty tumbled through him, because Adam _had_ thought that himself at one point and now he knew it to be false. Adam covered by suggesting something more innocuous. 

“K's connected,” Adam pointed out. “That's another angle. They could say I want in on _that_. Tell me that hasn't been going around.”

“You don't cut the figure,” Jiang threw in.

“You say that,” Adam shrugged, when Proko had drawn them to a stop in front of his Golf. “But—”

“Don't say it takes all types,” Proko interrupted. “Really, Ivy,” he threw an arm around Adam’s shoulders, “You're on the wrong track entirely.”

“It seems you didn't hear any of the good stuff,” Jiang said after lighting a lavender colored joint. 

“You want to know what Travis told me they were saying?” Skov said.

Adam shrugged, “Sure.”

“I do!” Noah said, settling on the hood next to him.

“Apparently, according to Travis,” Skov grinned. He waved off the joint when Jiang held it out. Proko took it instead. “Peugeot had been telling people what went down last week. Making a huge deal out of all the shit the two of them were talking about Gansey and Lynch. And how _you_ didn't speak up for them—”

He went on to relay a conversation Travis had in final period. It consisted of several the different theories that had been floating around campus for Adam’s absurd switch and apparent assimilation into the pack. He outlined it all with brisk efficiency and was nearly done when Kavinsky and Swan pulled up in the evo next to them, having sped over to the Pick & Save to buy a couple boxes of fancy ice cream sandwiches.

Though Adam had work at three, the pack was still holding a mini celebration for the first day of senior year being over—even if it was in the Ag parking lot on the hood of their cars.

“—then Ryang was like ‘Well does it even matter? Since Parrish seems like actually relaxed for once?’”

“That’s not what he _said_ ,” Swan interrupted, tossing Skov an individually packaged ice cream sandwich underhand.

“Oh,” Skov dismissed. “Like _you_ were there!”

Swan raised an eyebrow. 

Skov made a disgusted noise, and emphatically, restated, “That was _essentially_ what he was _implying_.” He placed his unopened ice cream sandwich on the roof of Proko’s Golf. K was tearing open the other box of sandwiches, while Jiang put out the joint. Skov meanwhile was turning from Noah back to Adam his fingers outstretched, palms up, like he was presenting this information physically. It was Swan who placed a package in Adam’s hands.

Swan held his own sandwich between his teeth by the plastic as he flattened the box. 

Skov’s exegesis of Travis’ conversation in Pottery class apparently ended, quite definitively, with that comment made by Ryang. According to Travis, this opinion had been adopted by the other boys who had been debating the switch. Skov offered to bet any of the rest of the pack that by tomorrow afternoon the general consensus would be that Adam’s swap had been above board. 

Adam shook his head as he peeled the wrapper off. He’d like to believe that, but he knew what people were like. 

K raised his eyebrows when Skov looked to him. “They can think what they want. As long as they don’t hassle Ivy, it doesn’t matter to me.”

When even Jiang passed on Skov’s odds, he visibly slumped. 

“None of you are any fun!” Skov whined. Noah clunked his head with Skov’s in sympathy before just letting him lean Skov’s head against his wholly corporeal form.

“Eat your ice cream sandwich,” K told him. 

“Really,” Swan told Adam confidentially that the marking of their first day done was only half the purpose of the sandwiches. “The sugar is just a bribe to get everyone to come and do the pre-prep for tomorrow.”

Adam nodded in understanding. Pre-prep, really just a teenaged boy friendly term for cleaning, was as important as rolling in the speakers to any of K’s parties.

 

 

 

 

 

Adam opened his door and found Gansey unexpectedly standing in front of him for the second time that day. 

“I hope I'm not intruding,” Gansey said. “I wondered if you happened to have finished the calculus assignment yet? I can’t get number four.”

After a moment, Adam stepped back, opening the door further, and said, “You can look at mine.”

Gansey came inside and closed the door behind him. Adam went over to his desk and began shifting through his stack of completed work to find the right notebook. 

“My mom called,” Gansey started. 

Adam glanced back at him. Gansey was still standing just inside the closed door of the room. There had been a point in his and Gansey's relationship where the other boy would have known he was welcome to sit on Adam’s bed. But something fundamental had shifted between them, and Gansey was too polite to presume. 

“She asked if I wanted to meet the governor of the great state of Virginia? I could bring my friends! No, mother,” he said, tone clipped and tired, “I would in fact not like that. But your sister will be there! I assumed so, but I hardly consider it a plus, as she and Blue didn’t exactly hit it off. Alright, sweetheart, you don’t have to, I know you’re busy but oh—” he made a lengthy, dismissive, brushing gesture, “so on and so forth—” His eyes caught on Adam, who was holding out the ten cent college rule spiral he did all his math in, and he stopped abruptly. “Oh, I almost forgot,” Gansey said in a careful, unstudied manner and reached into his overcoat. “I brought payment for my intrusion.”

Something in Adam bristled. He had set up the most basic of boundaries between them for his own peace of mind, but Gansey, after all this time, still could not respect them; couldn’t respect their purpose. Adam was sure that was a dig against Kavinsky and what lines Adam allowed him to cross _without_ payment. Gansey merely pulled out two Milky Ways, holding one out to Adam.

“Why are you here, Gansey?”Adam asked instead of taking the candy. 

Gansey sighed, tossing the chocolate onto Adam’s bed. 

“You know,” he said, “I kept expecting you to show up,” Gansey admitted. “Some late night, after they were done with you. Maybe when they had pushed too far. I think you saw that this last Monday.”

Adam had.

“But you never did,” Gansey continued. “I still really hoped you would.”

Adam gave Gansey a dark look from under his lashes. The fact that Gansey would prefer what would amount to an all out war, even now, between K and his pack against Gansey, Ronan, and Cabeswater to this truce Adam and K had built was disturbing. Not surprising, but he would have hoped that Gansey would have reached the logical conclusion that would be _dumb_ by now.

“I thought I knew why you were distancing us,” Gansey continued. “I thought you were punishing me-—”

“That wasn’t the reason,” Adam said, and then amended, “Okay, yeah it was a small part.”

Gansey nodded, a bitter resigned twist to his lips. “I thought that the distance hurt you just as much. But it hasn’t. I saw you at lunch with them today—”

“My friendship with them has _nothing_ to do with you,” Adam said.

“I...I realize that now, I'm just saying that’s what I _thought_. Just—” he broke off. “I guess I somehow thought that when school started up things would settle back down. Go back to normal.” 

“You said you thought we would at least have classes, but we haven't properly spoken in nearly two months. Why would you think school would change that?”

“It was foolish of me to expect you wouldn't get close to them,” Gansey said. “It seemed so absurd though... I couldn’t fathom it.”

There was something about these admissions.....something about Gansey that was _different_. Adam looked at him. He didn’t look wonderful, that was for sure. He looked harried. He sounded resigned. The way he held his shoulders seemed to indicate he was holding a great weight on them beyond his coat. But there was some new spark in his eyes, Adam thought he caught sight of, one that could have quite as easily been of madness instead of determination. Something had changed in him since the last time Adam had properly looked at him. He couldn’t tell if it was for the better.

It hit Adam all at once that he didn’t know what was weighing on Gansey. He didn’t know what had given him hope in the face of that—if indeed it was hope and not a final push over the edge. He didn’t feel like he knew his friend anymore and that sent a bolt of sharp sadness through him, because he wouldn’t have chosen this for them. 

But he had chosen this. Adam had laid his cards on the table and so had Gansey and Adam had stepped back. He could have tried harder. He could have—he had wanted to—what? There was nothing he could have done in the face of how things went down. Nothing he _would_ have done different. Adam felt bile rise at the back of his throat.

Gansey was looking at him, blatantly curious as Adam, spaced out, appeared to still be taking him in. 

Adam needed to break the silence and explain himself. He finally settled on, “You don't look so good.”

“I am fine,” Gansey said pulling on his Richard Campbell Gansey the Third face.

“You don't need to do that with me.”

“No? I don't know where we stand anymore,” he said defenses dropping entirely to reveal a defeated man. When he pulled off his wireframes, Gansey looked truly at a loss. “I feel like I barely know _anything_ anymore.” He rubbed at the bridge of his nose roughly with the knuckle of his forefinger. “Everything's gotten so far from what I wanted. It’s all gotten so ugly. Your deal with Cabeswater, Whelk, Mr. Grey and Ronan's dad, then Kavinsky, And now Greenmantle.”

“Are you putting this on me?”

“I'm stating the facts,” Gansey said, sounding too tired, too world weary. “This whole thing has gotten so disgusting...so far from what I had imagined it to be...”

Some secret, malevolent part of Adam had been waiting for a moment like this. When Gansey would wake up and realize that the real world the rest of them lived in was not nice. It was cold and ungentle.

“I'm not making excuses either,” Gansey continued. “I can't lay the blame all at your feet. I have to take some of it too,” Gansey said quickly, eyeing Adam as if he were ready to cut in. “Listen. I just need to say this. I need to tell you these things because we haven't spoken in so long. I don't think you're—I don't even know. Just let me lay it out, you can say whatever you want when I've said it all, please.”

“Alright.”

Gansey took a breath. “We’ve drifted. I know that with the deal with Kavinsky you couldn’t help being away most of the time, but I didn’t make an effort. I realize now that you had Cabeswater breathing down your neck. It was all new. There was Noah gone and you wanted to help.

“Ronan and I talked and—I know I didn't make it easy for you. You have your commitment and I know you're friends of a sort with them now. I don't understand it, but I can respect it,” Gansey took a breath. “What I'm saying is: I’ll let it lie. I don't like it, you know that. I still don't think it was the only way to have moved forward, but it’s what happened. I'm sorry for taking so long to accept it, I just—I miss you.”

Adam waited a beat and then hesitantly asked, “...Is that all?”

“Yes,” Gansey said, becoming more certain of this as he drew out the ‘s.’

“Okay. You already know I'm not sorry for doing it,” Adam said. “But I am sorry for how that left us.”

_In a cold war of confusion and unease_ , he thought.

“So we’ll agree to let it lie?”

Adam nodded. 

Gansey nodded too. “Thank you for listening and your time.”

“You don't need to thank me, Gansey.”

“No, I really do. You being gone,” Gansey said, a sad smile breaking his lips as he looked up at Adam and caught his eyes. “It reminded me how grateful I am to have you as a friend, in spite of everything. We go nearly three months without properly talking and I feel like I’ve been at loose ends. Like a king with only half his privy council with both you and Noah always gone.”

Adam looked at his friend and resisted the urge to say that he might be at loose ends too if he only really spoke to Ronan and Blue for a few months. “You know you can text me. It doesn’t just have to be about our plans for Sunday. I gave you that number for a reason.”

Gansey lifted his thumb to his eyebrow, considering this. Unbidden the question of if Adam was really prepared for the brunt of what a restored friendship with Gansey meant; the tax on him both mentally and emotionally that came with navigating Gansey’s comments and his general inability to grasp Adam’s boundaries. It was horrible to say but the last two months of minimal contact had been relaxing. Adam wanted Gansey as his friend, but being friends with Gansey was often frustrating. “Speaking of keeping you in the loop, you need to know something about Greenmantle.” 

Gansey proceeded to confirm what K had told him at lunch by way of the Grey Man, who he and Ronan had gone to see that afternoon. Adam said something to the effect that they would really need to be cautious now. But Gansey was worried about Ronan and what he might do. Adam thought he was right to be concerned.

 

 

 

 

 

Once Gansey left, Adam took out his phone and tapped into his message thread with K. The pack was probably all still working on the pre-set up for tomorrow. As Kavinsky would say, a party was only as good as its prep. Nobody wanted to step on a shard of broken glass or slip on a loose nail when they were trying to have a good time.

_how’s the prep coming?_

_:o_  
_i guess that depends_  
_ivy is this a booty call?_  
_how much prep do i need?_  
_i mean how big are we talking????_

Adam stared at his screen as each of the texts appeared. He continued staring for several more seconds before it occurred to Adam that Kavinsky was _fucking_ with him. He pointedly hit the caps button before typing out:

_K SHUT UP_

Then Adam climbed into bed, turned off his desk lamp, and slide under the covers. Such an action would be ultimately pointless if he still had his phone in his hand—which he did.

_IVY!_

_FUKC OFF_

_you said it babe ;]_

_go away_

_why_  
_????_

_i’m going to sleep_

_:(_  
_see you bright and early in bio!!!_  
_sleep well!!_

_night k_

Adam turned the screen off, fighting off a smile as he turned into pillow.

 

 

 

 

 

Indeed bright and early the next morning, Adam met K and the pack again in the student parking lot. 

There wasn’t enough interest in the advance senior science classes to hold more than one section of each. Most seniors went for standard senior bio or chem and a not inconsiderable number had opted for meteorology or astronomy; courses that were reportedly easy. There was also a special section course offered by a visiting professor on oceans. Not to be outdone the resident Ag prof who had been bumped on both his weather and astro courses for the visiting instructor, had petitioned to hold a class provocatively entitled Eco-Tourism/Eco-Terrorism, which was granted, and given how fast the new sections were filled was quickly capped at thirty-three students.

For his only genuine elective course, Adam had requested to be put into astronomy, but whether it had filled up too quickly or the time it was held conflicted with one of the classes on his rubrics cube of a schedule Adam didn't know because he was not given the astro class, but instead his second choice: Computer Aided Drafting II.

Adam didn’t really mind. Except he thought it was odd; he’d figured being at the top of his class might have granted him some precedence. Apparently not. If Adam were feeling particularly ungenerous, he would probably assume it had something to do with the fact that he was, after all, only a scholarship student.

So his B days went: bio, physics, world history, a break for lunch, and then the drafting class. Swan would be in physics with them and he had history with Jiang.

Proko, Adam, and Kavinsky were crossing the quad, having lost the rest of the pack to classes in the main hall, headed towards Brixton House, where without exception all science classes were held.

Up ahead, Gansey was making slow progress in the opposite direction, engrossed in a conversation with Martin, Saltonstall, and some other guy Adam thought might be named Bacon. As the groups came closer, he nodded at Adam with a small smile. Adam nodded back and Gansey nonchalantly steered his group to the left. This would have been effective at avoiding all possibility of collision of the two groups had it not been for Ronan. He’d been trailing morosely behind Gansey, till Gansey started drifting to the side. Ronan hadn’t altered his course in the slightest though, so that Proko, Adam, and Kavinsky were in his path and were perilously close to running into him. Or rather Ronan was close to running head-long into K, who was on the end.

“Hey, man,” Adam said in an effort to abate the awkwardness when they were just a few steps apart. Meanwhile, Proko merely shot Ronan an extremely unimpressed look, but Kavinsky hadn’t looked at him at all. 

K just kept telling Adam a story about how the night before the pack had to shoo a family of opossums from the building they’d chosen to hold his substance party in. Apparently the marsupials had made a little home in the pantry. Adam was only half listening to K’s story at this point, half-convinced that he really didn’t see Ronan coming right at him, but at the last minute—when Adam was worried they would smack shoulders and start a fight—K stepped behind Adam, still telling him how’d they caught the papa—who had not been as nasty as the mom, but more wily— and Ronan stalked passed them in a cloud of anti-climatic resentment. His side-step was deliberate, restrained, and probably more effective than an all out brawl. 

This snub, which had taken place in the middle of the bustling quad, would be spread around the whole school by third period. Kavinsky’s rather flagrant attempts to get Ronan’s attention last year, which while largely ignored during school—when Lynch showed up—were highly encouraged outside of it and had been noticed by every Ag boy who kept track of gossip _and_ those who did not. Now it was Kavinsky who ignored Ronan, almost as if he didn’t see him. Yesterday, the switch of Lynch for Parrish had been noted, but not fully grasped. Now that it was evident, the gossip was running hotter and the double partnering of Adam and Kavinsky in bio and physics only added fuel to the fire.

 

 

 

 

 

Adam ducked into the bathroom. He had a couple minutes, as Jiang was grabbing them seats together in world history. When he zipped up and turned around, Adam was surprised to find Ronan leaning against the wall at the end of the line of sinks, clearly waiting for him. 

Mentally, Adam sighed as he crossed the room and turned on the tap. He had been dreading the rehashing of the rent thing, but for some reason hadn’t expected it to come so soon. 

“Gansey told you what Mr. Gray said to us yesterday about Greenmantle?’ 

Adam, who had been in the act of getting some soap, glanced at him. “Yeah, he did.”

“Do you think there’s a way to take him out without turning the rest of his web on us?”

“You’re asking me that _here_?” Adam asked. Even though they were the only ones currently in the rest room, it wasn’t un-heard of for teachers to use the student bathrooms.

“When else am I going to see you, asshole?”

“Sunday,” Adam said, turning off the tap and shaking the water from his hands, before grabbing a paper towel out of the dispenser on the far side of the room. Adam checked his wrist watch as he dried his hands. This was so like Ronan. They had less than two minutes.

Ronan glared. As if to prove Adam’s point about privacy, the bathroom door swung open a moment later. Ronan caught it with his hand and forced it closed with a curt, “Fuck off.”

“Fuck you, Lynch!” a boy Adam didn’t really know threw back and the door snapped shut. Ronan turned back to Adam.

“This can’t wait,” Ronan said. 

Adam had a feeling there was more to the end of that sentence, so he stayed silent. 

“I don’t want Gansey to worry,” Ronan said, after an excruciating pause.

“From what I understand, Mr. Gray told you to let him handle it.”

Ronan shook his head. “I can’t let that fucker get off scot-free.”

“I don’t think Mr. Gray will let him off ‘scot-free,’” Adam said mildly, shooting the paper towel wad into the trash bin. He had to get to class. 

“I need something water-tight,” Ronan said, as if Adam hadn’t spoken and he began pacing. “Something that will devastate his life if he doesn’t leave us alone.”

“What about the line?” Adam asked, propping his hip against the sink basin.

“What about it?” Ronan asked, looking over at Adam. 

“I assume you want to _dream_ this blackmail.”

“If you can find a way to cut him out without disrupting the rest of the web and not do it with a dream, I’d be impressed.”

That was not necessarily what Adam had meant. Obviously simply dreaming up a good enough reason to get Greenmantle out of Henrietta and their lives for good was the best option they had available to them—certainly the most versatile—but depending on what it actually was and how much of it they would need, that could be quite a drain on the line. A huge drain probably, and that was just the ley line. Adam dismissed the project from his mind. 

“Not me. I don’t have time for this,” Adam said, moving passed Ronan towards the door. He wondered if Ronan had requested a free period, then doubted it. Adam estimated he had less than sixty seconds before he was late for his first history class of the year. Ronan didn’t care about making a good impression with whichever teacher was supposed to have him now. Adam had been surprised he’d even shown up for day two. “I gotta get to class.”

“You’re the one who told me you knew how to make Cabeswater work for you,” Ronan said, catching Adam’s arm. “You and I both know, you don’t need any of this.” He made a sweeping dismissive gesture, as if to encapsulate the whole of Aglionby. 

Adam shrugged him off and gave Ronan a hard eyed look, “Says you. But the last time we talked, you told me you didn’t think I could pull off even paying my rent without your help— _despite_ my connection with the line.”

“I need you with me on this,” Ronan shook his head as if Adam’s point was inconsequential.

“And when exactly am I supposed to do any of this?”

“Now,” Ronan shrugged. “We could go to the library and—”

“Like hell,” Adam said, shaking off the hand. “Do you even know what you’re asking? I am paying for every second of class time with my own sweat and you think I’ll cut to address a problem that’s already being handled by someone who sure as shit knows more about this than either of us?” Adam glared at Ronan. “You can flunk high school if you want, but this is my chance to get out of here and I need any free time I can scrap up for college applications. Why don’t you just be the loser you so desperately want to be, drop out, and handle this yourself?”

“Fuck you, Parrish.”

“Go to class, Lynch.”

 

 

 

 

 

When Adam finally slid into his seat next to Jiang in world history, after mouthing ‘sorry’ to Constance as she was walking them through that year’s syllabus, he found him oddly agitated. 

“What’s wrong?” Adam whispered.

“Later,” Jiang muttered under his breath, still frowning across the room at a contingent of the vancrew.

It was only when everyone was seated at the pack’s table for lunch that Adam discovered the depth of Jiang’s plight.

“This is going to be the worse year of my life,” Jiang complained into his sun-dried-tomato and ricotta pizza.

Adam glanced at him slightly alarmed. But it was Skov who asked, around a mouthful of salt and vinegar chips, “Why?”

“Because,” Proko said. “Jiang and Koh are in bio class together this year.”

“And ESL,” Swan added with a smirk. “And lit. and math.”

“Oh shit,” Skov laughed. “That sucks!”

“You forgot World History,” Jiang said darkly. “So far the only class I don’t have with him is art. It’s like the Ag ad board is trying to drive me crazy.”

“Or your father paid them off knowing this would push you to salutatorian this year,” Proko said.

Jiang let out a hiss of disgust. “He doesn't know anything about this.”

“What is _this_?” Adam asked. He knew _of_ Koh. He was one of the more driven of Henry’s set, if not the most driven. 

“Oh that's right. Ivy doesn't know about your little competition.”

“It’s not a competition,” Jiang corrected.

“Oh yeah,” Skov asked. “How would you describe it?”

“Foreplay?” K asked.

Jiang flipped him off, before turning back to Adam. “Koh,” Jiang said, with a shake of his head. “He is just insufferable when he comes out on top. Annoying like—you know the type... _preening_. It’s disgusting. So I just have to do better than him.”

Adam’s eyebrows were halfway up his forehead. Jiang was unusually invested in this _un-competition_.

“It could have been Koh's parents,” Proko speculated. 

Jiang shrugged, as if this wasn’t completely out of the question. 

“I cannot wait for you two to be paired on a project,” Skov said with a wicked smirk.

“Not going to happen.”

“Famous last words.”

The rest of lunch devolved into discussion of the final logistics for the substance party later that night. Adam, who had work till ten pm, was exempt from any last minute tasks, but he contributed a few suggestions. There wasn’t going to be anything as magical as glow-in-the dark fireflies, but Adam had the feeling tonight was going to be amazing all the same.

 

 

 

 

 

After he got off work, Adam had gone straight to St. Agnes to take a shower and still swathed in only a towel, he had collapsed on his bed to shut his eyes for just a few minutes. 

Adam was startled from his nap by the chime of his phone receiving two texts.

_you off yet babe?_  
_you want me to pick you up?_

Adam glanced to the top of the screen at the tiny clock in the corner and guessed he'd only been out about twenty five minutes. He texted back.

_aren’t you supposed to be circulating?_

_booze run ivy_  
_proko is covering_

_yeah come get me_

Adam opened his top dresser drawer and fished out fresh socks and boxers. He pulled them on and surveyed the rest of his clean clothes. It wasn’t like he had anything flashy to wear to K’s parties—nothing like the rest of the pack, certainly nothing like Swan. Actually, Adam had already pretty much decided what he would wear, but he was having last minute doubts now that he needed to be ready. He turned to what he had laid out the night before last.

A white tank top emblazoned with the blue and red NASA logo, well worn but carefully unstained, and a pair of black skinny jeans, which Adam had found at the local second hand store. Half of Ag’s dorm population dumped all of the crap they accumulated throughout the year there when summer hit. Even if every single born and bred Henrietta resident despised the Ag students, they still flocked to that store in June. It was a literal treasure trove. Adam had learned to go looking for replacements for his sparse wardrobe on the extra discount days. 

Last year, he’d been flicking through the varied and largely inappropriate pants in his size, when Adam had seen these jeans and threw them over his arm to take to the changing room on a whim. They had fit so well, the fact that the tag indicated they were not a part of the sale hardly seemed to matter when he bought them. Later, he had cursed his rashness. According to the lady behind the counter, he’d gotten a deal even without the discount. Apparently they were designer, but Adam had never heard of the brand. All he knew was the price, even at Thrifty Save, was outside of Adam’s pants budget—which didn’t actually exist. 

Now though, as he slid them on, he was feeling much better about his purchase. Adam stepped back into the bathroom to check his appearance in the tiny vanity mirror. He was running his fingers through his hair, messing the mass up to get it into something that looked good and not like he’d took a nap with a wet head, when he got another text from K.

_at your curb, no rush_

Adam flipped off the lights without any further deliberation. He locked his door, and took the stairs two at a time. 

“Hey, babe,” K said, when Adam slid into the passenger seat. 

“Hey,” Adam said as he fastened his seat belt. He and K hadn’t had a real chance to talk since Gansey revealed the truth about Greenmantle. Kavinsky had spoken of rumors at lunch yesterday. But now they had confirmation and K, at the least, should be aware of what Mr. Grey was planning. “I have to tell you something.”

“Shoot.”

“The man who killed Ronan’s father told him that Greenmantle put out the hit,” Adam started before laying it all out for him; Gansey’s revelation of the web and Mr Grey, then what Ronan had asked of him and what Adam had said in return.

K took it all in untroubled. 

Adam looked at him. K was cocky; a sure bright flame. Greenmantle’s danger stemmed more than from merely tempting Ronan to homicide. Maybe Adam had been too hasty in his dismissal of Ronan’s plea for assistance. 

“So that blackmail he wanted you to scrape up was—what?” K asked. “Just to get Greenmantle out of town?”

“At least.”

K hummed.

_Retribution_ , the word settled unsaid between them.

The passing streetlights cast bright patches of light up on K's face, rolling over his chin, the sharp curve of his nose, his eyes, shining off the lenses of his shades pushed into his hair. Not giving a single fuck. Adam remembered with vivid clarity K's gun sure attitude that first morning in his kitchen.

_Do you really expect me to just stop living cause some fucko wants me pinned to a board? I’d like to think I can handle it._

Could he really?

“You want to know if I'm worried?” K prompted.

Adam shrugged. He already knew K wasn't. But Adam was.

“I think you might be giving him a bit too much credit,” K said at length. “Fucking Ronan hasn’t sold him anything. I really haven't sold him anything too fantastical, and there’s my dad...”

“Greenmantle hired the Gray Man and he figured Ronan out–”

“–Because he was looking at the Lynchs.”

“I wouldn't bet the moment the Gray Man quit, Greenmantle didn't find a suitable replacement. And to assume whoever else is on his payroll isn't as clever would be foolish.”

K pulled up to a four-way stop and looked over at him with that keen thing in his eyes. “Adam, if either of us is going to be worried about him, it's me.”

“That's what the Gray Man said to Ronan and Gansey. Apparently, this is _his_ problem to solve. Told Ronan to stay out of it. He seemed to think that Greenmantle was just here for him.”

K shrugged as if that didn't change anything. “You need to focus on school, your college apps, and then Cabeswater. So what do you need to not have to worry about this prick?”

“What do you mean?”

“I could dream up a warning device—like an alarm if he gets too close?”

“If he's that close, it will be too late to do anything. Even run. He'll hunt you down.”

“I would rather be alive and on the run, able to gather my own resources, than being vivisected.”

“Thank you for that image.”

K opened his mouth to say something but his expression was cowed and he abruptly turned to look at the road again. He still didn't take the turn. 

“An alarm couldn't hurt,” Adam allowed.  

“Hey. I asked what would help _you_. If that's not gonna do it....”

“It would be better than nothing,” Adam said. 

“So enthusiastic,” K griped, running his palm over the leather of the steering wheel. “You have some time to think of something else. I'm serious. You don't need to stress over this.”

“I see him everyday....I am not going to just forget the danger you're in.”

“Me?” K clarified, eyes catching Adam's and holding. _Not Lynch._

“Yes, you. You're the one still forging things. Greenmantle gave his ...hitmen these machines that measure energy. They’ll see the surge of the line with the manifestation of the dream and then the drain when you pull the forgery out. They will point them right to you. Anyway, I’d be surprised if he doesn’t have one himself.”

“By that logic,” K said. “Every time you let the forest take your rage, you should be pointing their little magic barometers in your direction too.”

“Magic barometers?” Adam repeated, momentarily derailed from wondering what happened to the line when Cabeswater reached out to him like that.

“I don't know what they're called,” K shrugged.

“EFMs,” Adam said. “Or EDIs.”

“If you practiced safe sex, Ivy, you wouldn’t have one of those,” K chided, with a shake of his head. 

“An Environment Detection Instrument,” Adam corrected, rolling his eyes. “It certainly doesn't help we're always together.”

“Ha. Your forgetting that I only forge shit on Sundays,” K said. “And _that_ should confuse him if anything—pointing them towards me on one side of the town and towards you and Dick 3's treasure hunt on the other.”

_That was not funny._ Really it wasn’t. Despite himself, Adam let out a wry laugh.

“Or shit, I could just dream up a ley line energy white noise machine. Problem solved.”

Adam let himself sag in the passenger seat. _That might do the trick._ “Better dream up that alarm too. Just in case.”

He didn't bother to ask how much K would pay himself for such a contraption and Kavinsky didn’t offer its price tag, just grinned and took off again in the direction of the party.

 

 

 

 

 

Adam smoked a few rounds with Jiang off the side door of the garage, till he made the mistake of going inside to look for water. Swan found him after he drank half the bottle and pulled him out on the dance floor. 

The building that had until yesterday been the home of some opossums was actually just a partially finished house of the Estates of North Henrietta. Construction had only begun in earnest on five of the so-called estates before the development stalled. That had been seven months ago. Since then they had stood empty, half-erected, and lenient of marsupial vagrants’ rights to languish and propagate.

The layout of the house the pack chose actually was quite similar to K’s own, with the main floor’s vaulted ceilings and the open floor plan kitchen-dining-living-room, which was where most of the dancing was taking place. Not that it hadn’t spilt into the entry and up the grand staircase too, but the front door was wide open and partiers were smoking out front. 

“Don’t tell me,” Adam said, knowing Swan would be able to hear him over the music. “Ryang left you.”

“Nah, he’s taking a turn with—” and Swan gestured off over Adam’s right shoulder. Adam turned, seeking out Ryang. He was dancing with someone who might have been Logan Rutherford. It was hard to tell when Adam could only catch partial glimpses, When Adam let his gaze go back to Ryang himself, the other boy was looking back at him and smiling. He caught Adam’s eyes and waved energetically. Adam nodded giving him a slight smile in return.

“And you couldn't find anyone else?” Adam asked turning back to Swan.

“Of course I could,” Swan said, un-self-consciously. “But I wanted to see you on the floor and be honest—” here his demeanor shifted and he was giving Adam one of his _looks_ , “would you have come out if I hadn't asked?”

Adam shrugged.

He wouldn’t deny dancing was fun. But he wasn’t about to ask some random person out on the floor.

Adam wondered if K could dance. 

They’d separated once they’d reached the dirt of the incumbent sod lawn. When Adam had gone for the water he’d had his eyes peeled for K. But this wasn’t like the Fourth and Kavinsky wasn’t holding court on top of his car. Adam hadn’t been able to spot him; assuming he was trading dream drugs for menial sums, ‘spreading the cheer,’ and generally keeping to the shadows and murky edges of the party.

Adam absently looked for him again and was a bit shocked when his eyes caught on the white of K’s shades. The lithe guy Kavinsky was talking with had light brown skin and curly black hair. 

Even though Morris had graduated last year, Adam knew a bit about him. He was up at Harvard now. His mother was heiress to some oil money. His father was a French-Algerian manufacturing tycoon. As the crowd pulsed, Adam noted Morris looked sharp in a black tank top and some white shorts that were intricately patterned. 

Adam kept them in the corner of his eye. Morris was gesturing now, arms spread wide to indicate something and Adam caught sight of a tattoo on the inside of his bicep. At this distance and with such a mass of bodies between them, Adam couldn’t make out what it was. But something about the curving lines made him think it might be one of K’s.

Adam refocused his attention back on Swan, realizing he’d been missing some seriously cool moves. The other dancers around them were even slowing down to take note. But a few minutes later, when Adam glanced back to where he’d seen K with Morris, he could hardly believe his eyes.

Morris was leading K out on to the dance floor. Morris’ wide smile, infectious, and his hand pulling at K’s, who went easy and fell with practice ease in to step with Morris’ dance moves.

This was a fascinating development. 

He’d never seen K dance before. Adam would have guessed he had some sort of objection to it. Now, Adam wondered if he’d just missed Swan pulling K out for a spin or if this hidden talent—and Adam would call it a talent—was only brought out by Morris. 

Adam tried not to stare. He tried to pay attention to Swan’s moves and follow them, but they weren’t that far away. Adam’s eyes kept seeking out K and Morris in the crowd. 

They were giggling about something. Morris started talking again and K, having given up all pretense of dancing, laughed even harder. So hard in fact he had to hide his face in Morris’ neck; half bent with huge wracking spasms rocking K’s frame. Morris just patted his back, looking pleased with himself.

Adam made his eyes leave them and skitter over the top of the crowd, while he tamped down on something inside himself hard. 

When Adam let his eyes go back to them—he couldn’t not— he almost immediately locked eyes with Morris. Morris, who had been looking at _him_ , was obviously trying not to grin, but apparently couldn’t help the smile that came out; exposing his perfect teeth.

Adam turned away mortified, as something horribly unjustified snarled up inside him. 

It couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds, before Adam gave into this weakness. He could barely last the chorus of a song. Adam looked back at them again. 

Proko had appeared from somewhere. K had a hand on his arm and was whispering something his ear, before they swapped places in front of Morris. Then K leaned in to say something in Morris’ ear. Stepping back slightly, K met Adam’s stare. Adam felt his cheeks flush at being caught out _again_ —Adam wasn’t sure if it was worse with K or Morris—and then Kavinsky was moving through the crowd toward them. 

 

 

 

 

 

“Mind if I cut in?” K asked. 

Adam rocked back a step, prepared to cede his place with Swan to K. _Who wouldn’t want to dance with Swan?_ He thought about maybe grabbing some more water before having another smoke. Jiang was probably still out there. He’d shown no sign of moving when Adam had left him. Adam got the idea he didn’t like being in an en-closed space with such a large mob, but Jiang asserted that he was their first line of defense against unwanted visitors. Adam knew only a few names that might end up on that list. If he went back out there, he might be able to get Jiang to fill him in. 

But it was Swan who moved out of K's way and it was Adam K pulled closer.

Some balloon of hope that had been steadily letting out air inside Adam’s chest for the passed ten minutes suddenly inflated again. He felt light and energized. Adam wanted to ask about Morris, but that seemed rather pointless when K was here. Dancing with him.

K was not as stunning a dancer as Swan; did not have the same genius of movement. His appeal was more in the enthusiasm and ease in which he followed the rhythm, than any real ingenuity of moves. Fragments were good, the bombastic sinuous movements of his outstretched arms, for example, made Adam want to step back and take him in at distance.

Instead, they moved closer.

Adam had seen the way Kavinsky’s eyes had lingered on his exposed collar bone, his bare biceps when he had climbed in the mitsu. Linger really wasn’t the right word. It was more like ogling. But Adam hadn’t said anything. He might have, but doing so would have been rather hypocritical. 

Adam had noted that Kavinsky looked particularly good tonight as well. He had on one of his pairs of black shorts—the ones with too many pockets for all his party favors—, the usual white tank top, and a red short sleeve button up, which he wore loose and open. Cut from this fluttery fabric, it had a detailed print on it; some flowers and a mountain, but the main draw was clearly the dragons breathing smoke and the tigers prowling all over it.

Adam wondered if the symbolism was intentional. 

Something about the way K had now draped his arms on either side of Adam’s neck weighed heavily towards ‘yes’ on that scale. 

Swan’s impromptu dance lesson hadn’t covered where to touch your partner and Adam didn’t know what to do with his own hands. Instead of doing something logical, like mirroring K’s arms for a kind of slow dance, he reached up. Adam had been struck by the need to see K’s expression. _What Kavinsky was thinking?_ Adam didn’t want to read this dance wrong, but K was, unsurprisingly, still wearing his shades. Adam carefully pulled them down till he could actually see K's eyes.

“Doing alright, Ivy?”

His irises were dilated, but the dance floor was dark. He was calm, with a hint of amusement or mischievousness on the edges. Whether that was from the dancing or Adam’s curiosity to read him, he couldn’t tell. 

“Yeah,” Adam said and just as carefully pushed them back up.

Skov was fading them out of Swan’s funkadelic trap into something more sultry.

K took Adam’s hands and put them on his hips before crossing his arms back behind Adam’s neck. Something electric ran through Adam’s core. 

“Enjoying yourself?” Adam asked.

“Course,” K said. “You?”

Adam gave the barest shrug. “I can't believe you’re on the dance floor,” Adam admitted.

“Swan had told me you were good after the August one and then I saw you when I was over with Morris,” K said. “Couldn’t resist.”

“Couldn’t resist?” Adam repeated with a breath of a laugh. “K—”

“SHUSH! It’s true!” K interrupted. “Ivy, you have no idea how _good_ you look on the floor tonight.”

Adam felt the color rise in his cheeks and was glad for the darkened room.

As Skov spun them into new song after new song, the dance floor temperature in the half-assembled house got hotter and the large anonymous crowd seemed to be pressing them closer together. 

Adam didn’t mind.

 

 

 

 

 

The room was thick with vibrant, glossy sound. All movement on the floor seemed to have slowed down. 

It was like a fever dream.

People were passed the point of the night where they cared if they were making fools of themselves or otherwise. The dance floor was more crowded than ever. Had Adam looked around he would have seen Morris all but dry humping Proko, who was apparently trying to suck his lips off, Swan and Ryang in the midst of some intense slow grind, and countless other couples making out or engaged in what could pass for dancing under only the loosest context.

But Adam, like the hundreds of other partiers, was completely absorbed with the person across from him. As if they were in their own little bubble, that was until somebody jostled him. 

Adam stumbled forward. One hand gripped K’s hip and the other slid around to K’s back as he collided with K’s chest. Kavinsky rocked backwards a step with the sudden weight and braced Adam’s shoulder. 

Regaining balance, Adam steadied himself on his own two feet. He ran his hand down K’s spine before resting on the small of his back. He felt K take a deep breath. With his other hand, Adam reached up and took off Kavinsky’s shades and tucked them into the collar of his wife beater. Kavinsky pulled the two of them flush.

A hot electric jolt at the intimacy of it ran through Adam.

Whatever complicity that had rested between them to not act on this ...tension seemed to have been given a pass tonight. Or was it that all of the looks and lingering touches had been mounting to arrive at this moment.

K's face was getting closer. One of his hands was angling Adam’s head down. K’s eyes were on Adam’s lips. Hell, Adam was looking at K's too. They were right there, so close, and yet Kavinsky stopped.

Adam had thought about that near kiss in the hallway. What he would have done if he had thought K was going to kiss him sooner? What he would have done if K had kissed him? How kissing K would _feel_? 

K’s lips were impossibly close, hovering, waiting. 

Waiting for Adam.

Adam closed the distance.

Just a wet brush of lips. Then K’s lips were on Adam’s again, moist and wanting, and then they were kissing, _really_ kissing. Adam’s fingers found their way into K's hair. K's tongue brushed Adam’s lips and Adam’s tongue followed K's back into his mouth.

They were doing this hypnotic slight grinding that kept sending sparks down his spine.

K pulled back a few centimeters for breath and Adam felt an honest to god smile gracing K’s lips. He was grinning right back, as he leaned in again. 

 

 

 

 

 

They would have kept kissing had a loud panicked trilling not begun emanating from K's phone. K pulled his hands and lips from Adam. He didn't go far but Adam felt the loss acutely. 

“What is that?” Adam asked.

“The police,” K said sounding genuinely surprised. “They haven’t busted up one of my parties since freshman year.”

Adam looked around and, sure enough, he saw the tell-tale spinning red and blue lights reflected on the wall of the foyer. 

“C’mon,” K said, taking Adam’s hand and beginning to lead him through the crowd towards the door nearest his car.

In the next second, the music cut out abruptly, people became aware of the flashing police lights, and the party melted into confusion and chaos.

Adam pushed himself against K's back and gripped his hand. He didn't want to lose Kavinsky in the crush of panicked revelers.

“Jiang has the car,” K said turning his head back to Adam as they pushed through the crowd, phone in hand.

“No one lives around here for like two miles,” Adam said, as they neared their turn to file out the kitchen side door. “Who called it in?”

“They probably have a rent a cop that cruises the neighborhood for vandals and stuff at night,” K said, as they broke free from the crush at the door. “Not like we saw anyone last night.”

Then they were running across the dirt side yard, hands still clasped. They ran through the next lot’s yard too before they saw the tail lights of the mitsu. 

By the time they made it to the evo, Skov was sitting in the passenger seat up front next to Jiang, clutching his laptop to his chest, huge grin on his face. Noah was already wedged in the farthest seat in the back with an empty keg in the foot well. Adam dove inside and K climbed in after him, telling Jiang to “Go! Go, go, _go_!”

“I can't believe we got hit by the fucking po po,” Skov laughed, as the car accelerated away from the scene of the crime. 

“Swan?” Adam asked, fumbling for his seat belt.

“With Ryang,” Jiang said. “Probably booking it through the field.”

“Proko?” Adam asked.

“He’s with Morris,” K said looking up from his phone. 

Their hands were still tucked together in the small space between them. K gave Adam’s hand a squeeze and this buoyant lightening shot through him; a strange giddy pressure that fizzed through him as Skov and Jiang argued about the most circumspect route to get back to K's.

He and K wouldn’t kiss again tonight. Not with the others around. But if this was what materialized from all those lingering looks and long touches...Adam kept K’s hand tucked in his.

 

 

 

 

 

After his two shifts on Saturday, Adam let himself into K’s house. He headed straight for the kitchen, half hoping to find K there alone. He wasn’t of course, but Adam filled up a glass of tap water—ostensibly his reason for not heading straight to the basement.

All day he had been distracted by every wonderful memory of last night. The feel of K’s lips, his tongue, his hands. K’s responses to Adam’s touch. The absurdity of their laughter as they ran for the evo. The way their fingers remained intertwined. 

The moment Adam stepped onto the landing of the basement stairway he could smell K’s trademark anise root-beer smoke. Adam descended the stairs, half holding his breath that it would just be K in the hallway; even as he reminded himself how much he enjoyed the others company. However, he wasn’t about to kiss K in front of them and he really wanted to kiss K.

But it was just Kavinsky leaning against his side of the wall, body already angled toward the stairs and Adam, eyes watching.

Adam returned his stare. K’s black eye, which had been healing nicely, looked darker and sallower than it really was in the yellow light of the hallway. Adam would be lying if he said the roguish quality that it gave K didn’t do things to him. Though he looked better unblemished. Adam set the glass on the second to bottom step and moved to lean on the wall next to Kavinsky, who was blowing out a long plume of smoke. 

K held his cigarette out for Adam to take a pull. He did, feeling almost ridiculous for keeping eye contact with K as he inhaled. Though he was gratified by K’s pupils gobbling up the brown of his irises. 

He watched K take another drag, the way he held the black paper stark against his pale fingers. the hollowing of his cheeks. Kavinsky’s eyes were intent on Adam, watching the effect his actions had on him. He dropped his hand and blew the smoke down and out the side of his mouth.

Adam swallowed rather self-consciously. This time it was Adam who leaned in close and waited for K to close the distance.

K hardly hesitated in putting his lips on Adam’s again.

Still slightly cautious, though not quite as much as when their lips first touched. Still the eagerness Adam felt was kept in check by how K slow kissed him; savoring the taste of the residue of his cigarettes and Adam. Something low inside him flipped and started to hum. All day he had hoped the genius of them putting their lips together wasn’t based purely on the magic of the music and the revelry of the substance party. But now it was clear he’d been worried needlessly. The genius of it was still there between them. 

Adam didn’t think he’d ever get over what K’s tongue in his mouth did to him. 

Adam pushed K flush against the wall, his hands moving between the open blue short sleeve button up K had on and his wife beater. His fingers slid over the ridged fabric, feeling the curves and sharp bones of his warm body underneath the thin cotton. K’s own hands had reached up, one tangled in Adam’s hair and the other, still holding the cigarette, merely hung over his shoulder. 

It was good. It was so good.

K pulled back. Adam wasn't sure how he had found the strength to do so. Kavinsky had a peculiar expression on his face. Eyes just as intent, but something evaluating had crept into them.

“What’s wrong?” Adam asked. It couldn’t be anything to serious, K still had his arms circled behind Adam’s neck. They were still so close.

Kavinsky just looked at him.

“What is this?” K finally asked, his lips were quirked up but his eyes were deadly serious. “To you?”

Adam started. All day he'd thought about what they would _do_ , not what they _were_. He hadn't expected that question. Adam rocked back slightly. “I don’t know.”

“What do you want it to be?” K asked. His tone was deliberately casual, as if he were trying to pass this off as no big deal. But Adam had gotten to know K very well. This was a _huge deal_ ; more than Kavinsky was willing to show. 

Except Adam didn't have an answer. Finally, he asked, “What do _you_ want it to be?”

K let out a soft breath, “You gonna make me say it?” 

Adam just looked at him. 

“I want to be with you, Adam,” K said. 

“With me?” Adam repeated, as his breath was arrested by his lungs for seemingly no reason. He hadn't known how he'd expected K to see the change in their dynamic, but if pressed, he would have said _casual_ , which was so clearly not the answer.

“Yeah,” K said, there was that smile again, crinkling the corner of his eyes. “Like really try being together, not just fuck around.”

Dating. K was describing dating. Then Adam’s brain ever so helpfully supplied: K wanted to try dating _him_. 

Kavinsky did not date. Sure, there were rumors of Joey K’s flings, but no relationships to speak of. Hell, Adam wasn’t even sure he was out. Everyone at Ag seemed to think Kavinsky’s attempts to recruit Ronan were purely platonic fuck you’s to Gansey. But Adam knew K had wanted more. Was _that_ what K had alluded to? Was _that_  what Kavinsky had realized he wanted most from Ronan only too late? 

Even as he assumed that must have been it, Adam couldn't picture K and Ronan _together_ —not even if he reversed K’s suggestion from the 76 parking lot making it a question of purely pornographic nature. It wouldn’t be sex. It would be a fight. 

Kavinsky and Ronan aligned on few points: namely street racing, alcohol, and as dreamers. But beyond that, they were completely different in likes and temperament. Whereas K was openly effusive with his friends, to the point of it bordering on suspicious, Ronan was so gruff, Adam had wondered on more than one occasion if Ronan actually considered any of them his friends. K liked to be surrounded by his pack as often as possible and seemed to be in constant contact with them by phone. But Ronan would disappear in his room for hours—it would be days if it weren’t for Gansey or Noah—without a word. He never initiated a text and rarely replied to the ones he got. 

While none of that in and of itself marked them as incompatible, it did speak to the fact they had different needs and met them in different ways. What caught at Adam and made it impossible for him to believe K and Ronan could have _worked_ together was how Ronan was nearly as derisive of Kavinsky as Gansey was, even before their dream date. He had never stood up for him, not to Gansey or anyone else, even when they were on more than friendly terms—Adam knew he could too. Ronan had done it for Adam on a few occasions. And there was, of course, the way Ronan had used Kavinsky to harness his dreaming, before essentially cutting ties. 

No, K deserved someone who would appreciate him for himself and not what he could do. Someone who respected K as a person with his own wants and needs and hurts. As his friend, Adam would have advised K not to pursue Ronan; to find some other boy to focus his affections on, someone who would treat Kavinsky right. But was Adam this person? Could _he_ be the boy K deserved?

“What are you thinking?” K asked, stopping Adam’s mind from spinning away like a top. K was tense against him, expression serious and ...nervous. Something in Adam's chest lurched uncomfortably, as he realized only then how his expression must have darkened with his train of thought and how _exactly_ K would have interpreted that. Adam tightened his grip on him.

“I was thinking of something else. Not...us,” Adam said.

“And what do you think about _us_?”

“I hadn't...gotten that far,” Adam admitted. 

“...Well, I don’t think I can go half-measures on something like this. Not after—” K broke off, with a dismissive, self-deprecating roll of his eyes as he cut them to the side. 

_Ronan_ , Adam thought, as he took in the bitter twist to K’s lips; almost certain that was what K had been about to say. As if Adam merely thinking about Lynch drew him in to the conversation.

“I’m gonna need some clarity, Ivy.” 

That was quite within reason. Adam thought he knew his answer too. But looking at K now as vulnerable as Adam had ever seen him—not even with his cracked ribs in the mitsu or when he found out what happened to dream creatures—Adam knew he had to be _sure_ before they proceeded.

K was still his friend first. One of his best friends. He wasn't going to hurt him because they rushed into this. K knew what he wanted. Adam had a responsibility to him to know what he wanted as well and only take them down this road if that was the same thing.

“I need to think,” Adam said, rushing on as he saw something strained get fixed into K’s eyes. “I want to be sure. K, I don’t...want to play with you.”

Adam was having a difficult time reading K's expression after that. Kavinsky let his hands slide down onto Adam’s shoulders; palms both bracing him and holding him at a distance. K opened his mouth to say something, but he was interrupted by the door opening from the theater room. 

Adam’s blood ran cold.

Compromising position or not—and really it wasn't—there was no hiding exactly what they had been doing. Swan was already half out into the hallway before he saw them. But when he did, a sly knowing look came over his features and he finished pulling the door closed behind him with a quiet snap. He opened his mouth to say something all the while looking like the cat that ate the canary.

“Not a word,” K cut him off. 

Swan raised his eyebrows, face tipping down in silent reproach. Swan didn’t need to _say_ anything to let them know exactly what he was thinking. 

“Not a word to the others.”

At this, Swan’s mouth actually opened in shock, before he gave them the _look_.

“Malc, we’re not there yet,” K continued.

“Oh, really?” Swan asked, expression hinting at bemusement. “You certainly look like you’re there now.”

“If you don't say anything, I'll read lines with you for the next week. Anytime you want. No complaints.”

“You want me to keep this a secret from the others?” Swan asked, a wicked grin spreading across his face. “Who are you and what have you done with K?”

“A week and a half.”

“Two weeks,” Swan corrected, eyebrows raised and fingers pointing. “And ‘yet’ is the operative word in that sentence.”

“‘Course,” K said. “We just need a bit more time to—”

“I get it,” Swan interrupted.

“Have I told you how much I love you recently?” K asked, lips quirked in a quiet smile.

Swan walked over and, placing his hands on both of Adam’s upper arms, he leaned down to give K a kiss on the forehead. He squeezed Adam’s biceps and gave him a corresponding kiss on the crown of his head, before pulling away, saying, “I'm happy for you guys,” as he ducked into the bathroom.

Adam turned back to K, who still stared after the closed door for several seconds before the weight of eyes brought his attention back to Adam. K’s expression was no less friendly, but a great deal more serious.

“We can be together or we can be friends,” K said lowly. “But I don't want to settle for something in between.”

_Settle_. Generally speaking, Adam had no problem with casual romance. But K made being friends with benefits sound like it would be horrible. Something, maybe it was the way K was looking at him, made Adam think it would be horrible for _them_.

“Yeah,” Adam agreed hushed. “I don’t think we could.”

 

 

 

 

 

Except for the support dog, Roger Mallory was everything Adam had pictured for Gansey’s aged mentor. Though it was rather unsettling in how well he seemed to know Gansey; particularly now when the Gansey Adam saw in front of him was somehow not the same one he’d become best friends with the year before.

Apparently on Tuesday and Wednesday, Gansey had taken Mallory around to all the top local sights and introduced him to the ley line, as Mallory put it. But that Sunday, as all of the municipal offices were closed and Gansey and Blue had already taken a trip to the library’s map room looking for other caves, Gansey had gone ahead and gotten permission to hike Giant’s Grave again.

In the tiny dirt lot, at the base of the trail Gansey and Mallory fiddled with the surveying equipment; a final check before they started the hike, since none of them wanted to carry the tripod and case of equipment up the hill. Mallory wouldn't stop complimenting the ley line, almost as if he expected them to take credit for its existence. Adam supposed he and the pack could take credit for its improved flow, but the whole thing _was_ a natural wonder.

“I'm surprised other people aren't examining it,” he continued.

“There are,” Adam assured him. 

“Well, I don't doubt it,” Mallory said. 

Adam felt Gansey’s eyes on him and he glanced over at him. 

Adam hadn’t made a point to mention it, but surely Gansey had guessed as much. Greenmantle hadn’t _moved_ here from where ever the hell he’d been living before just screw over Mr. Grey and obviously he brought his posse with him.

There was a chirp from his pocket and Adam took out his phone. Skov had uploaded a video of Noah doing some trick called the Staple Gun at the skate park. Adam tapped the blurb bubble to add a comment.

 

 

 

 

 

Adam wasn’t one hundred percent focused on the hike. 

He walked when the others walked. He stopped with them when Mallory needed a break or when Gansey wanted to point out something of significance. He even had an odd little conversation with Blue. She had asked him how his first week of school went and Adam had to shake his head and laugh. This reaction did not instill confidence, because she looked at him rather worriedly till he began to tell her about his classes. Blue was quiet when he finished and he asked her to tell him about her own first week back. She did, but apparently there wasn’t much to tell, and the conversation didn’t go further. She kept looking at him like she was waiting for him to start venting, which made him think that Gansey or Ronan had spoken to her about all the drama the pack had started over his apparent switch of loyalties. Adam felt the need to do nothing of the sort and she soon caught up to Gansey and Mallory, who were leading the way.

The path was a monotonous switchback, that looked like most of the countryside Adam and the pack had spent the summer traversing for the line. The real source of interest came with the view, which could be seen as they climbed higher and only where the brush had grown low in spots or through gaps in the foliage. 

Adam kept pulling out his phone to see if he got any new messages even though the volume was set loud enough that he would have heard it in his pocket. He was almost certain Mallory thought he was one of those typical conceited youths of today, who could never be without their phone. Never mind that three months ago Adam didn't even have a phone. But he knew that he definitively didn't fill the figure cut by Gansey’s description, because apparently Gansey had described Adam to Mallory. Apparently he had described all of them to Mallory. 

Mallory and Blue had hit it off earlier that week, Adam guessed by the amount of chatting the three of them were doing while him and Ronan trailed rather listlessly after. From the snatches of conversation, Adam knew he could have easily joined them. 

Except that it was rather difficult to focus on their conversation when he knew that K was back in his room dreaming. Adam could feel the ley’s pulse as if it were his own. Every time one of Kavinsky’s forgeries manifested in his dream, the pulse slowed to a weak thrum. When K woke up, there was the abrupt drain on the line with the loss of the dream object. If the forgery was intricate enough, it could knock the air right out of Adam’s lungs; almost like when Cabeswater took his anger. He was starting to feel kind of woozy, in a way that had nothing to do with the gradual rise in altitude. Adam would have to remind K to spread his dreams out during the day.

K wanted to be with him. What did Adam want? Unhelpfully, he remembered the root-beer sweet taste of K’s mouth when he slid his tongue inside from last night. The shared conspiratorial smiles they flashed each other as they ran to his car, hopping over concrete blocks. The feeling of reclaiming K’s hand in his own once they were in the back seat.

_What did Adam want?_

In the seconds before Swan gave them his blessing, Adam had been shot through with panic—straight out irrational terror of how him and K might create a weird conflict with the pack. Stupid worries. But everything that happened at the start of the summer with Blue, all of the awkwardness and missteps, had come right back to him, and Adam didn’t think he could bare that happening with him, K, and the pack. 

If his experience with Blue was any evidence, trying to date a friend was an ill-fated pastime. Though, it probably wasn't right to compare the two. After all, Blue and K were nothing alike in terms of likes, personality, hobbies, opinions on yogurt, definitely their opinions of Gansey, of Cabeswater, and of Adam himself. The very way they interacted with him was miles apart. Even something as simple as touch—something which had never ever actually been simple to Adam—was drastically different. K was overly generous with physical affection; unlike Blue, who could be fickle about her touches, taciturn in her limits; blocking him. Not only refusing to allow those things with her but denying him an understanding of why she wouldn’t go further. Of course, she didn’t owe him an explanation, but there was something immature about with-holding one all the same. K too had limits but he at least had the decency to lay out his reasoning for them.

Everything was so different with Kavinsky. Maybe it was because Adam and K were closer than he and Blue had been when they had tried ....whatever it was they tried. 

Adam wanted to be with K, but...

If it ended—more like when it ended—what did Adam have to look forward to? A punched wall and a month of pure awkwardness. Was this only to be a high school romance? While Adam wouldn't go so far as to call that a _waste_ ; a part of him definitely thought it would be, if they were to invest their energy in being all romantic for nine months and then just quit. Because Adam, regardless of what Cabeswater wanted, expected to be leaving Henrietta at the end of this school year, but he didn't have the faintest idea of what K would be doing.

K had near endless possibilities available to him. He could apply to earn a degree in chemistry or bio-engineering or some other brilliant subject. While the avenue remained open, it seemed safe to assume, K wouldn’t be integrating himself into his father’s organization. Kavinsky didn’t even need to go to school if he didn’t want. He didn’t need _to_ work. So really there was nothing to say that K couldn’t just follow him wherever he ended up—Adam _dreamed_ of Massachusetts—but that was so presumptuous he halted that train of thought immediately. _They weren’t even together._

The point remained K could do anything. For example, today Kavinsky was dreaming up fifty grand worth of drugs for some New York mobsters, and Adam was still thinking about dating him.

 

 

 

 

 

It wasn’t a strenuous hike and they reached the peak in two hours—even with the leisurely pace Mallory had set. Adam pulled out his phone and took a selfie with the rugged hillside as a backdrop. He posted it on Instagram. This was not his first post, but it was the first time he had taken a picture at his own behest. Within five minutes, skov69 commented with a ghost emoji followed by the word ‘says’ and then five chili pepper emojis. 

jiangtm: uncalled for ivy

bropenko: no invite wtf  
bropenko:@skov69 ‘says noah?’ sure blake sure 

swansies: ivy in his natural habitat

K’s reply was an indecipherable collection of emojis.

aparrish: @itsyaboyjoeyk translation please?

Adam replied, though he thought, given the emojis, the meaning wasn’t something he actually wanted spelled out on a public forum. Apparently, Kavinsky didn’t either, because he had texted Adam twice by the time they were half-way back to the SUV. 

_means you’re looking good ivy_  
_how are you really doing?_

_i haven’t called on Cabeswater if that’s what you’re asking_

He could _see_ K’s shrug as he read that text.

_you gonna make us hike that too?_

_no_  
Once was enough for Adam.  
_but tomorrow cabeswater wants me to go out somewhere along route sixty-four_

_that place is such a demanding bitch_  
_like noah fence_

_none taken tbh_

_how bout i pick you up b4 school and then we can just jet out there after?_

_sounds good_  
_what are you doing?_

K told him what he and Proko were up to and with the plans for tomorrow out of the way their texts devolved into easy banter for the rest of the drive back to Henrietta. 

Rather mindlessly, Adam followed them as the others traipsed up the steps of Monmouth. Mallory almost immediately shut himself up in Noah’s room and Gansey was talking about maybe ordering a pizza. Glancing around, Adam wasn’t even sure why he’d come up to the loft with the rest of them. Adam had homework he wanted to finish before tomorrow. If he got it all done tonight, then he’d have the whole afternoon and evening to just chill with the pack after the Cabeswater errand. Adam started edging his way toward the door to the loft, getting ready to say his goodbyes. 

“Adam, wait,” Blue called. 

Adam turned in time to catch the tail end of a look that passed between Blue, Gansey, and Ronan that told Adam that they had spoken about this before they thought to bring it up to him. 

“Are you really sure Kavinsky is still keeping his end of the bargain?” Gansey asked. 

“Why ask?” Adam wondered. This was getting a bit redundant. They were never gonna trust K no matter how much Adam vouched for him. “Cabeswater’s presence has been stable. The line’s steady.”

“It’s not that,” Blue said. “We’re worried about Noah.”

“He hasn’t been around much,” Ronan said. 

“And you know how he gets when you ask him where he goes when he’s not with us,” Gansey pointed out.

“Oh,” Adam said, not quite sure how to navigate this. If Noah hadn’t told them where he’d been... “Noah not being around all that much isn’t a ley line issue. It’s not exactly like he has his own room here anymore either.”

“That’s temporary—” Gansey said.

“If Noah wants his room back—” Ronan began. 

“Don’t start to pretend you’re all altruistic...”

“No,” Ronan corrected with a smirk. “Purely self serving.”

“So you're not worried Kavinsky might be double-dealing you?” Blue asked.

“No,” Adam said. What exactly had Noah told the others about the pack? It didn’t seem like he had said anything. That, after all, had been the initial intention of inviting Noah along with him, and yet none of their views on K or his crew had softened. Not that Adam had been expecting Noah’s word to hold much salt with Gansey and the others on this issue. It had been a long shot. What was odd was how little time either of them seemed to spend with Gansey, when only Adam was bound to such a schedule. “Besides, I saw Noah yesterday.”

“Did you?” Blue asked sharply. 

“Yeah.”

“How’d he seem to you?” Gansey asked. 

“Fine, usual Noah,” Adam said, which meant Noah had spent the evening laughing with Proko, dancing with Skov, and throwing Hershey Kisses into the space between Jiang’s phone and his face. “When was the last time _you_ saw him?”

“Tuesday for me,” Blue said.

“For me, as well,” Gansey said. “This was very strange.”

She explained how she thought Noah was the cause of what could only be described as a supernatural event which had taken place in her guidance counselor’s office and how she and Gansey had found Noah cowering under the pool table later. “I’m worried for him,” Blue concluded.

Adam remembered seeing Noah at fro-yo after his and K’s tete-à-tete at the Barbecue It. He had been quiet, clearly just along to find solace in their company. It made sense. From the beginning, Skov had managed to pull the most life Adam had seen in Noah in the year he had known him. Skov inspired something in the dead boy, almost like when Blue was around, this buoyancy of character would surface. The way he was with Skov was not the same as with her exactly though. That, from what Adam could tell, really wasn’t who Noah was anymore. 

That night, he had thought it strange that Skov hadn’t tried to poke Noah into a better mood, like Proko tended to do with K. Rain had beat hard against the big store front windows, but Skov had seemed content to just let Noah silently lean on his shoulder in the booth. Then later when the frozen yogurt cups were empty, Skov’d tucked him up under his arm. It didn’t quite work. Noah hadn’t exactly stayed one hundred percent corporeal.

“Did he give any explanation?” Adam asked.

“No.”

“Will you try to find out how he’s doing?”

“Sure.”

 

 

 

 

 

Adam was in a dark room.

He looked around at the strange dim place he found himself. It had a low rocky ceiling and the only light was coming out from under the most ominous door he had ever laid eyes on. 

No... it wasn’t a room.

It was a cavern.

The rocky stalactite ceiling was claustrophobic and he wasn’t sure how he’d gotten here....

This didn’t seem right. He couldn’t remember what he had been doing before he realized he was here. He was vaguely aware of two other people behind him, but his focus was directed towards the door. He wanted to go inside it. If he went inside... _/he would be free._

Adam didn’t know why he had thought that. 

_if you go inside, you will be free_ , a voice that sounded an awful lot like his own said.

Adam stared at the shiny red door, the black that was oozing from the jam and puddling on the floor, viscous and sick. There was no way _that_ could be Glendower’s tomb.

This room was _wrong_.

_Your autonomy awaits...._

Someone far away was calling his name, Adam thought. He didn’t understand why he would be in a cave underground standing in front of a door. _Alone_. Surely this wasn’t where Glendower had been laid to rest, but where was Gansey? Where were the others? Why was he alone?

He was really starting to freak out now. Adam couldn’t remember how he got here. The only way out seemed to be the creepy murder door. Wait, that wasn't true. If he turned his head slightly, he could see a dark passage opposite the red door out the corner of his eye. But if he could barely look away from the murder door, how could he walk away from it. 

Adam didn't feel like he could walk anywhere. He didn't feel like himself.

Adam felt a sudden pressure as if something had taken his hand. He looked down at it, but it was empty despite the sensation of it being held by another hand.

_Open the door._

Adam _knew_ he would have the independence he craved to live how he wanted if he took the slick black metal handle and opened the door, but _that_ didn’t make any sense.

_Go_ , a woman’s voice urged. _Leave!_

Adam glanced at the two figures out of the corner of his eye. They might as well have been statues for all they didn’t move. One was a woman he thought he recognized.

_Get out of here, Adam!_

_Come on, open the door..._

The fingers he could feel but not see on his own were tugging at him frantically. 

_Ivy?_

That voice sounded like K. But K wasn’t here. 

_OPEN THE DOOR!_

_Ivy!_

_GO!_

He felt a pressure across his chest pulling him back. 

_ADAM!_

The cacophony of demands was too much for Adam to hold all at once inside his head and he squeezed his eyes shut, giving in. Adam allowed himself to fall back on the ebbing tide that was pulling him from this place. 

His particles began to coalesce in one spot, reforming in the shape of Adam Parrish in a vaguely familiar clearing. Moments later, he recognized K’s dream presence and Adam remembered what he had been trying to do before he found himself in that hideous cave.

K was directly behind him, an arm braced across Adam’s front as if he had been dragging a compromised swimmer back to shore. There was a bone deep reassurance to having K literally at his back. But then K was stepping away, still holding Adam’s hand, but turning him around and guiding Adam a few steps over to a prone form lying on the ground. 

Adam recognized it as his own body and looked up startled. K was watching him closely; serious, resolute, and very nearly on the edge of _panic._

_Adam,_ K said, _go back to your body._

 

 

 

 

 

There was a silence as Adam came back to himself. Quiet but not eerily so, there were birds chirping and wind in the trees. 

“He breathing again?” a familiar voice asked. 

“Yeah,” K said. He sounded much closer than— _Proko_ , who was worried if he was breathing or not.

“Adam,” he heard K say. 

He knew he’d been in deep, by how slowly feeling was coming back to him; his mind reconnecting with all the senses of his body. But he knew the warm heat in his right hand hadn’t left the entire time. 

Adam blinked his eyes open. K was lying less than a foot directly across from him and had Adam’s hand in his, two fingers pressed lightly on the pulse at his wrist. K was peering over at him, too concerned to try and hide it.

“Don’t try to move just yet,” Proko said. 

“Can you feel your toes?” Skov asked, his voice was high, nearly strained.

“Yeah,” Adam finally said, having curled them in his shoes just to double check that he was _back_. Adam couldn’t tear his eyes away from K; the residue of the panic that he had suffered was not long gone. No, it wasn’t even fully gone yet. K had sweat standing at his temples and a slight tremor to him.

“Ivy, I need you to answer a question for me,” Kavinsky said. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Adam since he’d come back to himself. “What started the conversation you and Proko were having while you were waiting by the car after school?”

Adam frowned. _What the hell?_ “...He was going to pull out his backgammon set. You were taking so long,” Adam recalled. “I asked if he was any good at chess. He said it wasn’t that, just no one could keep up with him.”

Then Proko told Adam that he had been in the Chess Club at Ag for the past four years and that he was pretty sure he’d be voted the treasurer for the third year in a row.

“Yeah,” Proko confirmed, voice a little stilted. 

K let out a breath. Adam felt his presence shift and for a horrible moment he thought K would pull away entirely. 

“Wait...” Adam said, gripping K's hand tight. “You pulled me out.”

“Yeah.”

With a violent jolt, the reality of the danger he been in moments before sharpened into focus. That had been it. The moment Persephone had been training them for had passed. If K hadn't been there, if he hadn't wanted to come along with him to Persephone sessions, Adam would have been lost. He knew with a dreadful certainty he would not have been able to extricate himself from that room on his own. But K _had_ insinuated himself into their lessons and kept vigil over him when he scried. He had known something had gone wrong and came in after Adam.

_Kavinsky had saved him._

Adam shifted his grip on K's hand, pulling him closer in the process.

“Thank you.”

K looked at him a full second, before closing the distance and giving Adam a sound kiss on the lips. It was deeply felt, but short lived; over before Adam could loose himself in it. K pulled back slightly and rested his forehead on Adam's in relief.

“Thank _you_ for coming back to me.”

Adam took a deep breath and he could feel K doing the same. 

“Both of you ought to thank...Persephone,” Skov said warily to the ground, sitting on a nearby log with his head in his hands. He sounded a bit sick. Proko was draped over him, face turned into Skov’s back. From the lack of comment about where K’s lips had just been, Adam assumed that they’d been sitting oblivious like that for a while.

“I intend to,” K said. He turned back to Adam. “Did you get what you needed to know?”

Adam remembered what he’d been trying to do now. He had wanted to see if he could follow the ley to the next fracture and save himself some time and headache. So after Cabeswater had shown him what to do to fix the break in front of them, Adam had reeled himself out further and gotten trapped in that horrible room. 

“Tell us what we need to do here, Ivy,” Proko said, covering a shiver by getting to his feet.

“So we can get the fuck out of here,” Skov finished, standing as well, hand braced on Proko. 

 

 

 

 

 

In the car on the way back to Henrietta, K drove tight jawed and exhausted, as Skov and Proko relayed the events to Swan and Jiang respectively via text. Adam felt increasingly disconcerted by the silence as the trees flew past. He’d almost _died_. Proko had said he’d stopped breathing.

“Was it hard?” Adam asked K. He needed K to talk to him. He just needed to hear him speak.

“...Ivy.”

“K.”

“Yeah,” K admitted on a exhale. “Second hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

Adam could guess what the _hardest_ was. But given what he suspected, Adam didn’t dare pry with Proko in the back.

Adam let the tips of his fingers brush K's, which had been resting discontentedly on the gear shift between them. Immediately, K took Adam’s hand in his, holding him tight, as tight as he had when he’d been pulling him out. Adam squeezed back and K loosened his grip slightly, but still held on firmly enough that it was clear he was still worried.

“What happened?”

Adam took a breath. “Last session Seph mentioned that it might be possible for me to anticipate the next break Cabeswater would have me fix,” Adam explained. “That day you found me before I could find out if that was something I was really able to do.”

“You thought you’d try it again today,” K said. There was no recrimination in his voice.

“Yeah, maybe save some time in the future, or so I thought,” Adam said. “I don't know.”

“Not be at the forest’s every whim?”

“Right,” Adam agreed. “I went out further than normal...But it wasn't like I hadn't gone that far before. I was being pulled to this one place. I thought it was my will carrying me to the next break. But it wasn’t. Where I ended up—it was a room with this red door. It took me a while to even comprehend what I had been trying to do. As soon as I realized there wasn't any damage I needed to fix, I knew I should get out—it was all so wrong—but I couldn't.”

“What do you mean ‘you couldn’t?’ Specifically? Like you couldn’t leave? Like you were stuck in mud?”

“More like...” Adam searched for the description of the feeling. “I was being held. I knew I should leave and yet I couldn't drag myself away.”

“What held you?”

“I don't know. I never saw it. But I felt it's presence,” Adam said. Oily, sick, insidious rot, and it had been inside him. Worse than anything he knew he’d got from his father. His father was a known evil. This...was something else. This was... “Not human.”

“ _Shit_. Where was this?” K asked.

“Out along the line. I was...in a room. A cavern really. I think it was inside the bounds of Cabeswater,” Adam started. “And there was this horrible looking door. I couldn't shake myself out of this compulsion to open it. Understand, I didn't _want_ to open the door. Something in my head was telling me I should, but that something wasn’t me.”

Adam felt K’s eyes cut to him, brief and nervous.

“Have you ever—” Adam began. “Been somewhere like that in your dreams?”

But K shook his head.

The urge he felt to open the door, which was not his own, reminded him with a shudder of Skov’s suggestion that Cabeswater might be evil. He had been the third person trapped by the thrall of what was behind that door. The man was completely unknown, but Adam knew the woman....and she had known him. It took another moment but then her face clicked in his memory. Adam gave a dejected sigh. 

K glanced at him again.

“You heard Maura Sargent’s been missing?” Adam asked.

“She’s one of Seph’s friends, right?”

“And Blue’s mother,” Adam confirmed. “She was there.”

“...like when you and Seph scry?”

“No, like _physically_ ,” Adam said. “I think she’s stuck in that cave.”

 

 

 

 

 

Swiping his magnetic key card, Adam heard the electronic beep and then the forbidding click of the lock. He stepped out of the employee entrance of the warehouse and, slipping the card back in his wallet, pulled out his cigarettes. 

Yesterday before they had gone back to K’s, he had taken them for a desolate dinner at a place out on Route 64. Famous for some secret fried chicken recipe, the place was all fluorescent lights, terra cotta colored tile, and hard plastic booths. While the food wasn’t terrible, it was largely picked at and pushed around. The noises from behind the counter and the open kitchen filled the silence at their table. Even Noah, who had shown up at some point in their drive back into town, had a difficult time receiving any genuine interest. They were all lost in their own thoughts. The rest of that night hadn’t been great, even though Noah gabbled on trying to lighten the mood.

Something had been off between him and K ever since.

Adam wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t making it up, but after the horror of the Monday Cabeswater errand, he had felt a certain coolness settle between them. Even more annoying, he couldn’t quite pinpoint what exactly was different, though Adam could guess _why_. He wasn’t entirely sure it didn’t have something to do with Adam almost dying, but it seemed equally likely that it could be about whether or not they would start dating. Perhaps even more concerning, whatever weirdness that had seeped into his relationship with K had so unnerved Adam, that he was spending an inordinate amount of time trying to figure it out. He felt rather unmoored.

Adam took out his phone and pulled up the number for Fox Way in his contacts. He pressed the green phone icon and held it to his ear. He needed to speak to Blue about her mom and something told him that she wouldn't appreciate if he left it till he saw her again in person, even if an in-person disclosure seemed to be what this conversation demanded.

Regardless, he had a responsibility to tell Blue that he’d seen her mom alive in a cave located _somewhere_. What Blue would be able to do with this information, Adam didn't know. But keeping it to himself didn't seem right either.

“You've reached the 300 Fox Way Psychic Hotline. What may we reveal for you today?” an entirely too suggestive voice asked.

“Good afternoon, Orla,” Adam greeted.

“Oh hello. Adam,” she crooned. “Don't disappoint me and say you're looking for Persephone again.”

“No,” Adam said. “I’m looking for Blue.”

Orla let out a small huffing noise. “She's at work.”

“Oh, Ninos?”

“Yes,” Orla said. Adam thanked her and ended the call. He scrolled through his contacts for the pizza place’s number. Though he hadn’t had cause to use it yet, Adam had still programmed the number in after K had given the phone to him.

He stared at Nino’s number. That hadn’t been how he wanted that call to go. This would not be an easy conversation to have even if they were face to face. Now he only had twenty-five minutes left to tell her and she would be preoccupied with work and trying to not talk to long and....Adam sighed and pressed the call button.

Not Nino Jr. but his brother picked up and Adam had to tell him twice that he did not, in fact, want to order a pizza but instead needed to speak to one of his employees. After that it was a matter of waiting until Blue could come to the phone from whatever waitressing duties she was doing. 

“Hello?” She said after several more minutes of waiting. 

“Blue, I am sorry to call you at work.”

“It's fine,” she said. “Is everything alright?”

Adam did not really think so, but he hardly have the time to disclose all of what was going on beyond what he had found out about her mother. This would be convoluted enough as it was.

“Well, everything's about the same,” he settled on. “I have something to tell you...” and he launched into the clearest description he could give of what had happened Monday afternoon, leading up to the point where he realized he’d seen Blue’s mother. “I know it's not a great help...” he trailed off.

“...She is alive though?”

“Yes.”

Blue let out this massive sigh; one that was so exhaustive she must have been holding it in for months. Probably since they found the note. It was good news, but he wished he could offer better. Adam heard the clatter of the kitchen in the background as she took a minute to compose herself. “Was it in Cabeswater? You think we can find it?”

“I think it was. I know it was on the ley...if it's not in Cabeswater, it can't be that far outside, but...the ...thing’s presence made it hard to really focus on the forest.”

“You don’t think maybe it could be the Dittely cave?”

“I don’t know, Blue.”

“That presence...was it Glendower?”

“I hope not,” Adam said after a moment. 

 

 

 

 

 

K was waiting for him in the hallway again. 

Adam set his water glass on the second to last step and went to lean on the wall next to him. He had never seen him smoke one of the magenta cigarettes K was now holding. Filterless, the paper was dyed such a rich shade Adam almost expected it to come off on K’s lips. The smoke of it made the hall smell of berries and cream. It was as if Adam had just walked by the downtown gelato shop in the early morning when their baker was in. He’d never tried Marie’s bake goods—they were too expensive, needless luxuries; though he’d get a scoop of Toni’s home made Virginian gelato, if Noah insisted they all go. While Toni and Marie were nice enough, their confectionary shop survived purely off the whims Henrietta’s small upper crust and Ag boys with a sweet tooth.

K blew out another plume of sweet smoke and Adam just had to kiss him.

Kavinsky tasted like berry cheesecake. Actually, he tasted like every sweet thing that sat in the combination confectionary-gelato shop window. Every pie and bonbon Adam had never been able to afford.

But K was kissing Adam back like he could _have_ him. And if Adam could just _have_ this....

K pulled back slightly, smiling. Adam could see the hope that he was tamping down on in his eyes. Adam needed to tell him to let it grow.

“I'm guessing you want to be with me?”

“One hundred percent,” Adam said. “Yes.”

K's smile was radiant. All the way up to his eyes, the crinkles at the corners and the hope that burst into bloom. Adam smiled back, holding K tight. K's hands on him were steady and his lips were perfect against Adam’s when they kissed again. 

Adam couldn’t believe he had this. 

Their kissing got heavier. They moved against each other, fully aware of the wonderful effects of friction. All at once it wasn’t enough for Adam. He palmed himself a couple times through his jeans, before reaching for the clasp of K’s shorts. 

K caught Adam’s hands and shifted his body so that Adam was against the wall. “Let me take care of you.”

Adam was not sure exactly what K meant by that as he undid Adam’s jeans and pushed them down. There was just the thin cotton of his boxers between him and the close but rather cold air of the hallway. Then K sunk to his knees. Adam did not wonder anymore.

K pulled the boxers down and Adam stood at attention. 

K glanced up at Adam again and then his hand was around the base of Adam’s cock and his tongue was on the tip. Then K’s full lips were all around him and that image alone, sensation aside, just about ended Adam right there. He had to bite down hard on his lip not to come right then; which would definitely not have been what K had in mind.

K slid as much of Adam as he could fit into his mouth. 

K’s mouth felt so good. Adam had to remind himself to breathe. 

Kavinsky was talented with his tongue. Adam already knew that, but he hadn’t been aware such skills extended to this particular practice. He was sort of in awe.

Through the hazy bliss, Adam wasn't sure what to do with his hands. One found its way in to K's hair. The other hovered uselessly, until K snatched it up and intertwined their fingers. It was at that moment, Adam’s eyes connected with K's.

Adam was alarmed by the intensity of feeling he found looking up at him. So much so that he wanted to look away. He felt his cheeks go hot. He just couldn't believe this was what K wanted—that K wanted _him_ —and Adam couldn't look away. It might kill him, but he wasn’t going to look away and wasn't going to let K down.

“Joseph,” Adam gasped and it was only then that K broke the eye contact as he swallowed Adam deeper. Adam’s head snapped back. A loud thwack reverberated in the small space, but K kept deep-throating him. 

Adam was close. Too close to do anything other than tug at K's hair and then he was coming in K's mouth, down his throat, teeth nearly going through his own bottom lip in order to keep quiet.

K rocked back on his heels when Adam was done. 

“You taste good, Ivy,” K said licking the corner of his mouth. Adam was slumped on the wall, sure that his face revealed everything he was too spent to say. Kavinsky stood, and leaning into Adam’s space, asked, “Want to see?”

Adam nodded, lips parted, and K leaned in—

Adam shot bolt-upright in bed. Breath coming in deep heaves and his heart hammering like he'd run a the 500m. He glanced around. Same old room at St Agnes. Alone, as always.

Adam threw the covers off and swung his feet to the small rug that covered the raw floorboards in front of his bed. He braced his elbows on his knees and pressed his fingertips to his eyelids.

When he opened his eyes again, the light coming through the open window was blue with early morning night. It was a little before five, he’d guess. Which meant he'd got less than four hours of sleep. Out of the warmth of his covers, Adam became aware of a coolness on his shorts. Looking down, he sighed.

_Nocturnal emissions._

Adam supposed he'd left it too long. But really, he was still getting used to school _and_ work again, this time with the pack _and_ Gansey, and he had homework and K—this awkward thing with K was a stress enough. 

Adam didn't like where they were now. He didn't understand it. All he knew was he missed how Kavinsky used to be with him. It was a shock, though it probably shouldn't have been. As the summer had progressed and routines formed, they had lived more and more out of each other’s pockets. Obviously K and him had become friends, good friends— _best friends,_ even—but it wasn't like they had got around to having a proper fight yet. There had only been those early transgressions at the beginning and those had been easily settled and since respected. It wasn't like Kavinsky had gone anywhere either. Maybe Adam just didn't think he would have to miss K even when he was standing right next to him. 

Everything had been weighing on him heavily. He’d come home, collapse in bed after work—after home work—and not be able to shut his brain off. He’d lie there thinking about _them_ and wake up no more rested. So jerking off...he’d let it take a backseat. 

Usually, Adam took care of himself in the shower, but it was quick and business-like. Not something he really gave himself over to. He’d been paranoid his parents would hear him when he'd lived with them. Now he didn't want to get his sheets dirty, since he only had one set and he'd have to cart them down to the laundry-mat and pay for the load himself. But having sex dreams about one of his best friends made him want to reconsider what responsibilities he could and couldn’t shirk. 

Running a hand over the wet fabric, Adam would have to find time for laundry now. Ideally the next time he was over at K's for two hours or more. That would be Thursday afternoon at the earliest. Tomorrow. Or, if he didn't want to sleep in dirty sheets tonight, he could go down to the laundry-mat after work later. He was fairly certain it wouldn't get back to K if he did, because it wasn't exactly like Adam wanted to tell him why he was in such a rush to get his sheets cleaned anyway. He couldn't go right then because they wouldn't be open till six, which would only leave him an hour for a quick wash, no time for drying....though he could bring the sheets back here to air dry. 

Adam glanced around the small room. There wasn’t much to drape something that big over, especially something wet. His bed, the desk, the dresser, hangers in the closet, over the shower stall in the bathroom. That would work. And if he propped the closet door open, he could drape the other sheet over that...

Adam stood, a plan taking form in his mind. He’d have to be at the laundry-mat right when they opened and he wouldn’t have any time for dallying once it was finished. He’d have to race back here and then drive over to Ag, all in twenty—twenty-five—minutes at the most. 

He turned on the light in the bathroom and stepping out of his dirty boxers got into the shower stall. Really he didn't mind spending his time with the pack, but _still_. There were some things he needed to do on his own with no questions asked. 

Adam let the water just run over him for thirty seconds. He couldn't stop seeing the depth of feeling that had been in K's eyes. Far from unnerving him, in the dream, K's eyes on him like that had been seriously hot. Their contact had brought this intense undercurrent to the fore.

That was what K wanted, right?

Adam wanted to be with K, _but..._

In the dream, there hadn't been any buts.

He wanted to be with K, so he was. That was the person Adam wanted to be, but couldn't. He needed to think this through, make sure he wasn't going into it for the wrong reasons. He needed to be sure and do what he told K he would.

_I don't want to play with you._

No, Adam certainly did not. And he had taken this long, let things get weird between them somehow because of it, Adam had to see this through. He couldn't slack off now just because he wanted to kiss K and yeah, get into his pants too. 

Was what they had beyond the physical enough to base a relationship on?

Adam would say yes, but—and there was that word again— _but_ the real reason Adam had been shying away from examining this question too closely was the deal. His and K's agreement in July bound Adam to the pack near exclusively. Of course he was going to feel some affinity towards K. He was with him all the time to the exclusion of everyone else. 

Something in him nagged that this attraction was just based on that availability. He didn't know what else to call it. Adam saw K everyday. He wasn't meeting other people. Of course he would want to kiss _him_ —of course, if there wasn’t something more to his and K’s relationship, that would mean he should also want to kiss Proko and Skov and Swan and Jiang and Noah and Adam did _not_ —but that didn't mean he and K should be _together_ either. 

He didn't want it to be true. And he didn't think it was. But it was something he needed to consider all the same. 

 

 

 

 

 

After school Thursday, the pack had all filed into K’s kitchen. The plan was to make tacos, but a quick scan of K’s on-hand food stock proved that he didn’t have any tortillas. K did however, for some reason, have a head of butter leaf lettuce and the group consensus was that would do fine instead. 

So the tacos were still on—only now they were lettuce wraps—and Adam had sat himself down at the far end of the island while the others either helped or pretended to help when they were really snacking. They were excited. Not so much for whatever this meal was turning into, but because the Laumonier meet was later that evening. The pack were keyed up; hype in a way they never got before a run of the mill drop. 

No one said anything, but the assumption seemed to be that Adam was staying in Henrietta. Which was fair, after all he was still scheduled for work at six. Though in truth, Adam was on the fence. Kavinsky hadn’t said a thing about it to him since his invitation at the Barbecue It. So much seemed to be happening lately, Adam hadn’t given the offer a great deal more thought. His curiosity was a strident force, but Adam didn’t think he could give K what he was looking for if he did tag along. Though K wasn’t pressuring him, Adam couldn’t really tell how disappointed Kavinsky would be if Adam didn’t go tonight.

Despite the immediacy of this decision, Adam wasn’t thinking about it. Instead, for the eleven billionth time he was trying to figure out what was up with Kavinsky.

Adam knew that it had to do with the substance party. But neither of them were pretending the kiss hadn't happened. The way K would catch his eye as the others squabbled made it clear his feelings hadn’t wavered. Nor that he was holding it against Adam that he didn’t immediately say yes. K wanted to be with him and apparently wanted to be with him enough that he didn’t mind waiting for Adam to be certain. In spite of this, Adam felt somehow that K had been holding him at a distance over the last couple of days. But when Adam recalled their conversations he found nothing to suggest this. 

Adam was about to convince himself he was making it up (again), when Jiang said they should microwave the sadly cold peanut sauce—just for a few seconds, just to get it room temperature—and Kavinsky pulled Jiang into a sideways hug, clunking his forehead to Jiang’s temple while extolling, “You are a genius!” Adam realized that was veritable proof K was treating him different.

Kavinsky was very tactile. The whole pack was, actually. K hadn’t been lying about that. From the very beginning, they’d thrown Adam off the deep end with all their physical affection, starting with the pack’s greeting moving on to arms thrown around shoulders as they jostled towards their cars and further, but always, always K’s arm around his shoulder, his hand on Adam’s arm, his thigh, his neck.

Kavinsky had just stopped touching him, more or less, Monday night. 

Adam never thought of himself as greedy. He got the things he wanted because he worked for them. Adam worked _hard_ for them. He had never thought he was an unjustly demanding person either, but he could admit that he had become greedy about those touches. It was with an uncomplicated shock Adam realized the more K touched him, the more he wanted him to. Now Adam was bereft of his touch entirely— _wait, no_ , Adam thought, K had patted him on the shoulder in chem Tuesday morning.

Adam wondered how he hadn’t noticed sooner. 

Currently, Kavinsky was comparing his taco creation with Skov’s. There was some banter about size. It had only been three days, but he hadn’t been making mountains out of mole hills. K was treating him different. Adam had been having a hard time sitting there watching K be his effusive self before this realization. Now it was impossible.

“Does your office have a printer?” Adam blurted just as K shoved the whole lettuce wrap in his mouth. 

It didn’t quite fit and he held the hand that had forced the food in hovering vaguely in front of his open mouth as he chewed. He had to swallow once, before he could be understood, mouth only half full. “Yeah, you need to print something?”

“I need to type up my essay for English.”

Swan dropped his taco back on to his plate just as he was about to take a bite. “Now that is dedication. We got another two weeks before that’s due.”

Adam shrugged. “We were _given_ two weeks. I definitely don’t _have_ two weeks to work on it.”

“...and with rehearsals starting next Thursday,” Swan said in realization. “Neither do I. _Shit_.” 

Proko patted him consolingly on the shoulder. “I love that you just assume you’re gonna get the part.”

“I am though,” Swan said with a dry smile.

“Oh I know, but I love that you know it.”

K had swallowed the rest of his taco by then and was watching Adam, eyes owl big, when he said, “It should be on. The guest log-in doesn’t need a password.” 

Adam nodded his thanks and left before further comments about his dedication or lack of appetite could be made, but he could feel K’s eyes on his back. 

 

 

 

 

 

Adam threw himself into the office’s rolling chair and shook the mouse awake.

He hadn’t seen Kavinsky second guess touching him, but it had to be a conscious decision. He wasn’t touching any of the others less. K still gave Jiang a passing shoulder rub. He tried to hop on Skov’s back—an entertaining feat given that of all of them Skov was most certainly the shortest— and K still threw an arm around Swan. He even shared a joint with Proko. Adam felt the disparity keenly, as K had done all that just today. 

Part of this might be on him, Adam realized staring at his notes. Why should K always be the one to make contact, when Adam could reach out himself?

Except these displays of easy affection were new to him. It had been K who had started up the craving in his bones for these convivial touches. Adam had never cared a lick for that kind of thing before he became friends with the pack. He hadn't known what he’d been missing. It seemed to easy for all of them. Natural. To just reach out and casually throw and arm around him or each other. They never seemed to over-think it. Not Like Adam. He had thought he’d been getting better at acting on his impulses. He was more or less comfortable enough to reciprocate, and even sometimes initiate, contact. Why didn’t Adam just go back in the kitchen, casually throw an arm around K’s shoulders, and have a lettuce taco?

Except Adam taking the initiative _now_ somehow didn’t seem fair to K, in light of his step back.

It wasn’t obvious exactly why K had drawn back; whether he was merely giving Adam space or withholding because it was painful for K himself that he couldn’t do _more_. Either way it made Adam want to pull Kavinsky aside and tell him to stop treating him different. Adam didn't want this to ruin their friendship. He had to force himself to remember Kavinsky’s face in the hallway. Adam knew what was at stake if he played fast and loose with K’s feelings. So he had to make a decision about that before he could bring this up.

Which shouldn’t be hard. His feelings towards Kavinsky were complex, but not indecipherable. 

Adam obviously wanted K in some sense. Yes, there was lust, but this afternoon’s revelation seemed to indicate he wanted him as a friend more than anything.

Should he risk their friendship because of a few amazing kisses and a hunch?

Adam desperately wanted to over-simplify things. It would be so easy to say that he _knew_ K and wanted to be with him and damn everything else, but that wasn’t the whole story and he had already decided that he would not gamble here. 

He knew Kavinsky. Knew he knew the real Kavinsky. That K _let_ Adam see him. Adam also knew ostensibly that him knowing the essential truth of K was all that mattered. Still what the rest of the world saw fit into who K was as well. A side of him Adam had never had a reason to pay attention to before, not outside the pack and not...when he went on drops.

The thing was Adam needed to know.

 

 

 

 

 

The moment Adam opened the door to the basement he was struck by a wave of root beer tinged with weed. Unsurprising, when he found K and Jiang loitering in the hallway. 

“You alright?” K asked, when Adam just stood in the center of the hall, instead of settling in on the opposite wall like they usually did.

Adam would be, but he was currently too amped off the adrenaline that came with what he had decided to do.

“I want to come to the drop tonight.”

K’s eyebrows shot up. “Really?”

Jiang was looking at him, joint halfway to his lips hanging limply from his fingers and mouth agape.

Adam nodded. 

“Alright, Ivy!” K said holding up his hand to pull Adam into the pack’s hand-clasp-hug. 

Adam went into it easy. He held K close for two beats before he forced himself to pull away. 

“Impeccable timing, as always. We were gonna load up once we finished this,” K said, flicking the ash off the end of his cigarette. 

Adam nodded again. He stepped back, making himself lean on the wall and pull out his own box of smokes.

“You sure about this, Parrish?” Jiang asked, after Adam had lit up and taken a deep pull. 

“Yeah,” Adam said. “I already called in.”

“I'll owe you for this,” K said, pointing at Adam with his black cigarette between two fingers.

 

 

 

 

 

“Ivy!” Swan called. “Ride with me?”

While not their habit, it also wasn’t unheard of for Adam to ride with one of the others, Still, as he followed Swan to his Golf, Adam couldn't help but wonder if this was more of the weirdness getting weirder as the pack separated between Swan and Adam, with Jiang and then K, Proko, Skov, and Noah—for the time being. The dead boy wouldn't stick around all the way up to Dulles, and even if he could, he wouldn't want to.

It felt like a very big thing when Adam slammed the car door and they pulled away from the curb.

_Technically this wasn’t illegal_ , Adam reminded himself. 

The legality of K's business had been one of their earliest conversations. On one of their late night drives at a distinctly illegal speed, Adam had wondered if K was only lucky not to get caught with possession and intent to sell. Or maybe, Kavinsky with his father's mob connections, just had the ability to elude authorities bred into him. Adam had asked if K was ever worried the cops would pull him over and with due suspicion search his car and find his dream drugs.

“Obviously, I could make an identical copy, but that’s just asking for trouble,” he remembered K saying. “People pay me to have a good time. They aren’t gonna have one if they go to jail for carrying my forgeries around. Plus, I can make better besides...no withdrawals y’know.” He paused. “I'm not sure how much you know about carrying laws...”

“I’ve done some reading,” Adam allowed. 

“Then you know once it's _in_ the system, there's not much the authorities can do. That is _unless_ they’re acting disorderly, in which case fuck ‘em,” K dismissed. “But as I’m, sure you can guess, most of the people who buy from me don't immediately take this shit. So if they get picked up for whatever reason, the police aren't gonna find what they think they have. Yeah, whoever bought it is still gonna think they’re fucked, but it's not gonna result in any criminal action. Same goes for us,” he said. “We're just bringing some sugar pills to our grandmas.”

Adam scoffed.

“I’m serious,” K shrugged. “That's what the tests come up as...”

Adam had no doubt K could dream with that intention, but really: “You've had your dream drugs tested?”

“Not me, no. My New York buyer,” K said. “They never ride with in the same car with the product and for good reason. One time their second car—the one that had the shit—got nabbed by highway patrol. Let's just say they didn't find what they were expecting when they saw all those bricks in the back. The next time they bought from me—some pills, I think— they had the product tested for themselves and found—surprise, surprise the chemical make up doesn’t reflect what they actually are,” K finished with a killer smile. 

At the time, Adam had restrained himself from giving an answering one.

 

 

 

 

 

“You haven't gone with us before,” Swan said. “If you hadn't decided to come at the actual last minute, I would have taken you aside...”

“We’ve got a four hour drive,” Jiang pointed out. “It’s not that big a deal.”

“K's not concerned,” Adam said. Though _Adam_ was, in a sort of back-of-the-mind way.

“No,” Swan agreed. “I'm not either.”

Adam turned to him. It was one thing for K to say that, but it was quite another for Swan to agree with him. Swan was a good deal more objective when it came to Adam.

“No, really. You'll be fine. Not a natural,” Swan clarified. “I don't think anyone's a natural at this really.”

“Just desensitized,” Jiang agreed from the back, in what must have been a well-worn rejoinder. 

Swan nodded and then said, “You fit the bill—pretty even keel, from what I've seen anyway. I like to think we've gotten to know you pretty well.” Then catching Adam’s expression out the corner of his eye said, “We do this about every three months, so we know what's needed. What will and won't fly.”

“So what did you want to talk about then?”

“Just some pointers.”

Adam waited. He could use pointers.

“I'm sure K's told you these guys don't fuck around.”

“He might have mentioned that a couple of times.”

Jiang scoffed.

“We always show together, but you're new; so they might look a little closer. Don't be afraid of eye contact, but also don't seek it out.”

“...okay.”

“Don’t be aggressive about it,” Jiang corrected. 

“Right,” Swan agreed. “It’s pretty much how you’d think it happens. We both park. They test the product. We count the money. Swap and that’s usually it.” He and Jiang shared some stories of drops they had been on in the past. 

They were actually really boring. Adam said as much.

“People just want their drugs, man,” Jiang snorted.

“We keep it professional, they keep it professional,” Swan said. “Actually, you might want to think of the you that goes on drops as like a different you, if that makes sense? Like separate yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

“Take every hard bit of you and all the tranquil reserve—”

“That poker face of your’s Skov hates so much,” Jiang cut in.

“Bring all of that and leave the rest in the car. Think of it as a kind of like acting.”

“ _Oh_.”

“Yeah,” Swan said, before diving into a mini theory and practice tutorial that seemed to have been paraphrased from some skilled dramatist; to the effect of how Adam could draw on past experience to establish a credible reaction to the current situation. As if this were an improv exercise. He finished with, “Really, you just have to commit to it. Sink into it. Let it become _you_.”

“Is this a method acting technique?”

“Yeah, actually,” Swan said, which somehow fit into K’s experimental therapy theory.

 

 

 

 

 

Swan followed K’s blinking turn signal and, instead of staying on the Dulles Access Road, got on the Twenty-Eight. Adam could still see the massive airport and realized they were making a wide circle around it. K eventually turned off the Old Ox Road and into some sort of business park. 

Adam said nothing as they stopped in the vast lot and got out. They were the only two cars here.

“Why are we meeting here?” Adam asked, walking over to K, who had popped his trunk. The business park might have been innocuous enough in the day time; clean, whitewashed warehouses and office buildings, but in its current state gave off a creeping ominous feeling with the humming artificial light and looming shadows behind tame shrubbery. But he knew why they had picked this location. It was past nine pm. This time of night all the offices would be deserted. The place was secluded enough that it was unlikely they would be interrupted—except perhaps by a rent a cop. Adam had vowed to keep those guys in mind after the oversight of last Friday. Still it was a good spot for this, all things considered. “Thought you said these guys were from New York.”

“They are,” K said. “They came down here for a meeting with Declan in Arlington and wanted to see what they could score off me while they’re in town.”

“Declan?” 

“I guess he’s still trying to make a profit as his father’s fence,” Kavinsky said, sounding unimpressed. “Even though he’s dead.”

This posed a new question. The way K had been talking these guys up, Adam had assumed since they were rubbing elbows with K’s dad that they were NYC mob or something like that. But if Declan was dealing to them...“What do they buy off of Declan? Do you know?”

This was met with a scoff before K explained, disparagingly, “The Lynchs think just because they don't spell out their secrets that they can keep them, but Papa Lynch wasn’t interested in drugs.”

“So? What are these guys looking for then?”

“Mostly the kind of stuff Lynch Senior did. Curiosities, stuff that shouldn’t work but did. Y’know, strange dream things.”

Adam did know. He thought about that trip to the Barns in June. There was no explaining some of those dream objects. They defied logic and only raised questions. “They know what you can do?”

“I don’t run around telling everyone, Ivy.”

“Of course not, but they couldn’t have known about Lynch and found out about you?”

“They don’t know shit,” K said. “I guess they think we find it or something? I'm not sure what he told them, exactly. Heard some screwy rumors, but I certainly never offered any ...eh, provenance on the stuff I've sold them.”

“Who gives a provenance on drugs?”

“Not enough dealers, in my opinion.”

K was probably right, but Adam didn’t have any stake in that. “So they like curiosities, but you only sell them drugs. How does that work?”

“Mostly drugs,” Kavinsky admitted, in not a wholly forthcoming manner. “They aren't so big on that, but if I have something more in the way of party pills, they'll take it.”

“What else?” Adam pressed. 

“Hmm?” K asked distractedly. 

Adam was not deterred by this ruse. “You said most of the time drugs. What else?”

K looked up appraising. “These guys aren't your run of the mill heavy. But still people you don't want to fuck with. They buy drugs from me, occasionally guns.”

“You sell guns?”

“Rarely,” K allowed. “Never anything too amazing.”

Adam just stared.

“Look, I save the really impressive stuff for us,” he half-turned, flashing Adam a view of his lower back and a chrome piece that looked fake. “Gotta have better firepower than who you’re going against.”

“You gonna need to use that?” Adam asked. He should walk right now. He should leave and damn Kavinsky for even asking him here. 

_There’s a risk. It’s not a very big one in my opinion. But it’s there all the same._

“Course not,” K said, meeting Adam’s eyes. “With Lynch Senior out of the picture, their magical artifact dealing took a bit of a dive. They need to supplement their business with some of my shit.”

Adam frowned and he turned to look into the trunk. 

“K!” Proko called. Kavinsky patted Adam on the shoulder and left him staring at the baggies.

Even though the drugs had been hidden in the spare tire compartment in the back of the mitsu’s trunk and would result in the chemical makeup of sugar if they were tested, Adam was still glad he had ridden up with Swan. There must have been over five thousand little white pills. Ten bags. Five hundred a pop and each one was stamped with a thumb and fore-finger curled in the A-OK! sign. 

K had modeled them after a standard trip on ecstasy. Adam knew, from more internet research, that the street price of ecstasy depended on how pure it was. No one had access to that kind of equipment on the street, but true connoisseurs of the drug would only need to try a pill to realize how above the rest these were. Laumonier likely got double the price they were to be paying Kavinsky tonight. Again Adam wondered why K even arranged drops like this. These men normally didn’t even deal in drugs and yet for some reason they made an exception for Kavinsky. And an eight hour round trip drive was not inconsiderable on a school night even for someone who loved driving as much as K. 

Adam sighed and turned back to the others.

In the span of time it took for Adam to reframe the situation in his mind, to accommodate the presence of a gun— _of guns_ , there’d been a collective demeanor shift. Everyone was serious, all that hype energy had been converted into an unflappable chillness. A minute ago he’d been talking to K, but when Adam looked up from the trunk of the car he saw Joey K.

Their first week back to school had afforded Adam glimpses of him. Kavinsky ran his dime bag business in the halls and closets of Ag with a fluidity to his persona. A kind of blink and you miss it seamless ease at which K dialed up or down his antics or charm. K had a way of picking up Joey K or just dropping the act entirely that made Adam think Swan had probably tried to get him in on one of the theater productions at some point. 

The reconciliation of his K—the one he’d seen everyday for the passed three months—and Joey K, forger extraordinaire, the boy everyone else saw, was something that ....it hadn't bothered Adam exactly, but he’d been puzzled. If he met Joey K on his turf with fresh eyes, Adam might be able to figure out why he needed the facade to begin with. With such hot shot clients and big stakes, Kavinsky wouldn’t have the luxury of dropping it for an instant. For an uninterrupted stretch of time K would have to keep the Joey K mask on, which would give Adam an extended look at him.

Here he was now, in all his glory, just as Adam had hoped. It seemed antithetical—bizarre, even—to be accepted to the inner sanctum of a group and only then want to take a step back and see what the general masses were regulated to. Except Adam had never truly paid attention to the pack before he was admitted. He had never bought from Kavinsky. Had never been around one of his parties until he had made the deal and by then he was oriented on a different caliber. Now he knew of a door out back, left propped open for him—a way into the façade—and it lead Adam to the K he knew. Maybe it was only that he knew what to look for now. Maybe it was only that he _was_ looking.

A pair of cars turned off the main road. Their head lights bright in the darkness.

“You ready?” K asked, pausing as he passed, the same warm hand at the side of Adam's neck. Now Adam missed the easy smile that should have come with it.

Adam nodded. He wasn't going to impersonate a gangster. But he set his face rigidly in a blank expression. Adam had grown sick of it years ago, but he fully believed it had saved his life, too many times to count. He could slip it on like a second skin. He wondered if K had a mask like this for the same purpose. If Joey K was the person K had been so glad to leave behind in Jersey; who's dad Adam could only imagine being a harder bitten man than Adam’s own father.

This wasn’t his K exactly, but Adam could still see parts of him.

He wasn’t a totally different person; there were just certain aspects of his personality he chose to amplify. Now one word came to mind: affable. In the past week, as he and Adam were going from one class to another, Kavinsky would be way-laid by someone wanting to place an order. This was the face he showed the other kids at Ag and the one he had on now.

But the charged environment of blatant illegality brought something else to the fore. There was something smugly superior about his manner. It was more than Kavinsky’s usual cockiness; a superiority that came with knowing something those you were talking to did not. And under it, there was this edge of danger. Adam didn't know why he thought that or if there was any real evidence to that conclusion. Just a gut feeling about a change in K’s aura.

The three men that got out of the innocuous Lincoln were brothers, followed by two clearly hired guns—that much was immediate from their stocky build and the way they held themselves—Adam noted as they stepped away from a separate car. There was some sort of eerie duplication from one brother to the next. They even looked around the same age. Adam had never met a set of triplets. Their eyes were the same, not the skin around the eyes, but the eyeballs them selves; their irises and how they behaved as they took in the pack.

“Kavinsky.”

“Laumonier.”

They did not shake hands. 

“What have you got for us tonight?” One of them asked in a heavy French accent.

“Ten bags of E. Grade A stuff.”

This raised one of their eyebrows.

“And you're expecting usual payment for that?” Another asked.

“Take it or leave it.”

These men did not have the air of persons who heard the word ‘no’ often or truly grasped the benefits of negotiation. Business-like while still giving off these ‘you better not fuck with me’ vibes. A slight chill went through him as Adam realized why. This was the air of men who knew death. The same air, he noted, K was giving off. Kavinsky was meeting these guys on their level. Untroubled, polite, but also prepared for something nasty. Secure in the knowledge they could handle it if it came their way. Adam thought about the gun in K’s waistband and wondered _how_ he had killed his father.

“What makes you think we have that much cash on us?”

K shrugged.

The three brothers seem to confer silently.

“We will need to test the product personally.”

“Of course,” K said and nodded at Swan. The especially bullish looking brother stepped forward and pointed to the fourth bag over from the right. Swan picked up the bag, undid the knot in the top, and held it open for him to pick a pill out. Laumonier did and then deposited it in the waiting hand of one of the hired men. They all watched him swallow the pill. 

“How long?” one of the brothers asked. 

“Ten minutes.”

Laumonier nodded and the hired man went back to standing off to the side. 

“I hear a mutual acquaintance has moved to Henrietta,” the slightest of the brothers started. 

“You heard right,” K said.

“What is he doing?”

“Teaching Latin.”

“And what is he doing _really_?” another brother asked, while lighting a cigarette.

“I’ve heard he’s had a little trouble with a former employee,” K said. 

“An employee who lives in Henrietta,” the particularly bullish brother stated.

“Recently moved.”

Laumonier sucked pensively on his cigarette. “Is that so?”

“Yes, that is all very interesting,” another brother cut in. “But have you heard anything more about this artifact? What did Lynch call it?”

“The Greywarren.”

Adam’s heart skipped a beat at the mention of the word. He would not react. He would not react. _Adam would not react._

“Yes, that.”

“I haven’t really spoken to Colin since he moved,” K said honestly.

“Maybe you should.”

“Me?”

The brother who suggested this shrugged.

“He’s your son in-law.”

“He is also a competitor. One who has been very rash and foolish. Killing a supplier like that....”

“What does Declan say?”

“Declan...” one of the brothers scoffed. 

“He likes to make out he knows more of what is going on down there,” Laumonier said. “But he only knows so much. He doesn’t even live there anymore, no?”

“No.”

“Then it is just the two younger brothers and there has never been any indication, they knew a thing of Lynch’s dealings or of the Greywarren at all. Or has one of them said something to you?”

Kavinsky let out a disparaging scoff, “Not a peep.”

“And Declan,” another brother said. “Hasn’t given it up to Greenmantle.”

“Yet.”

“We believe it would be in your best interest to find out if Greenmantle is still looking.”

“My best interest?” K repeated. 

There was an ominous beat of silence where none of the brothers said anything. 

“Are you threatening me?” K asked.

“Is that necessary?” Laumonier asked. “You don’t want him in your town anymore than we do.”

“It’s not exactly like there’s much of a market to corner now though,” Kavinsky pointed out.

“There has to be _something_ there that is holding his interest,” the first brother said. “Aside from some petty grievance with a former employee...”

“Does the name Mr. Grey mean anything to you?”

There was a pensive silence and then one of the brothers answered, “That explains why he would want to handle this personally, but I still do not think that is _all_ that drew him to your town.”

“We would be willing to compensate you,” the thinner brother said. “Should the information prove useful.”

“...I can talk to him,” K said, but he didn’t sound pleased with the idea. “I can’t promise it will come to anything,” Kavinsky shrugged. “But I could let you know.”

“Please do.”

The smoking brother dropped his cigarette, while the bullish one nodded at the hired man who had taken one of K’s pills and was now leaning heavily and happily against the second Lincoln. He made an a-ok sign—whether out of irony or if he was just that blissed out Adam couldn’t tell. 

The formerly smoking brother had gone into the backseat of their car and now pulled out a large stainless steel briefcase. 

Proko, who didn’t even need K’s signal, was already stepping forward. He let Laumonier open it and then did a fast count of the bills to verify it was all there. The un-incapacitated hired man stepped forward and began moving the baggies to his car. Proko waited till all of the drugs had changed vehicles, before placing the briefcase in the trunk and snapping it closed. 

It was all terribly civilized and anticlimactic.

The brothers were gearing up to go. The formerly smoking brother nodded once at Kavinsky and once to the rest of them, before climbing in the car and starting it up. The other two weren’t so much lingering as taking a final glance at each of them. This would be the last time Adam could make eye contact with one of them. 

Something made Adam reach into that coldness he had in his gut. It wasn't out of malice or dislike or the fact that they had threatened K or anything but plain curiosity—if he could do it and what would happen if he did.

Adam still wasn’t sure where that perennial anger K had been talking about was, but he had more than a few of those memories Swan had mentioned. Before the particularly bullish brother got to him in the line of boys, Adam had picked a memory he viewed with particular distance; he had come back to the trailer after work one Saturday afternoon to find his father already going at his mother. Normally, if he heard him shouting before he got inside Adam would just go hide in the garage and tinker around there, but that day, as he climbed the steps of the double-wide, they must have been at a lull in it. It wasn’t until Adam had opened the door, stepped inside, and saw a scene all too familiar—his mother on the kitchen floor, his father standing over her—that Adam realized what he had interrupted and by then it was already too late. He met his father’s eyes and was hit with a wave of revulsion at what he saw there. 

When the brother with a particular bullish look caught Adam’s eye, it was a shock to both of them. 

Adam realized only then that the expression he had pushed into his eyes was the way his _father_ had looked at _him_ in the memory. Not the righteous anger _Adam_ had felt, but his father’s hatred and meanness—it was so unexpected, so not what he intended that his own anger flared up, but Adam, through sheer force of will, did not drop his gaze.

The man stared at him and then blinked.

Adam did not. 

Laumonier cocked his head to the side, and, in a way that never fully left his back exposed to them, turned, heading back into their black Lincoln. The hired men were leaving too. The pack barely moved as the two cars navigated their way out of the lot.

Adam wasn't exactly sure what K had been expecting him to feel, but he hadn’t experienced some massive release. 

What Adam did know was he’d had a glimpse of the person he could be if he didn't watch himself. If he didn't stop himself from going hard and bitter in the face of a world apathetic to his pain and desires. It wasn’t quite what he thought K had wanted him to get out of this, but it was enough for Adam. Actually, he wouldn’t mind going on a drop again, maybe even regularly, just to remind himself of who he _didn't_ want to be. That Adam could still do the things he needed, that he could get where he wanted to go without becoming his father. 

It was not until the tail lights of the two Lincoln Navigators turned back on the main road, that the pack started acting like their old selves again and the teenagers they were; breaking into a round of celebratory, hand clasped back-slapping hugs and triumphant whoops! The reshuffling put Adam and K next to each other as they were getting in the way of persons they already hadn’t hugged. Adam was keenly aware of how close K was standing to him and how they hadn’t hugged yet either. 

In that moment of infectious jubilance, Adam forgot all his reservations. He forgot everything but how much he wanted to hug Kavinsky. Adam reached an arm around K's shoulders cinching them close. 

But K didn’t stay under his arm for long. He pulled back and Adam was achingly reminded of how distant K had kept him for the past few days. For a horrible second, Adam was certain nothing would ever be the same between them. He screwed this up by trying to be decent. By trying to do K right, he screwed everything up. 

Then K's arm was around his waist, pulling him close, closer than Adam had been in days, and Adam realized K’s arm had been wedged between them at an uncomfortable angle when he first tried to give him a sideways hug and K had needed to work it free. Adam wanted to kiss Kavinsky. But it was enough for K to smile at him like that. Adam couldn’t keep the smile off his own face.

They would be alright again. 

 

 

 

 

 

act iii  
i'm underneath your tongue

 

 

 

 

 

Friday after school was the first time Adam and K had a session with Persephone since Kavinsky pulled him out of that cavern.  

She was already waiting for them in the shade of the porch of the Fox Way House when they got there. Usually, it was Adam who went up to the house to get her—because of the two of them, K was more distracting to the other psychics. Today, however, K had already killed the engine, was out of the car, and making a beeline straight for her, before Adam even got out. 

K was not done hugging Seph by the time Adam came up the walk. A brief hug in greeting between them was not uncommon, but K didn't give any indication he would be letting go any time soon. Adam climbed the porch steps slowly and stood off to the side, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. 

“Joseph, what is this?” Seph finally asked.

He told her what happened Monday, as they finally made their way to K's car. “He could have died!”

“I honestly don't know how I would have gotten out of there,” Adam added after they’d piled in the car.

“It was a good thing Joseph was there then,” Seph said, buckling her seat belt.

“You're to thank really,” K underlined meeting her eyes in the rearview. “ _You saved Adam's life._ ”

“I'm glad the process worked,” she said mildly. “Now, Blue mentioned you called her after seeing Maura there too? Tell me more about this mysterious force keeping you in that cavern, Adam.”

He told her as many details as he could remember. Adam wasn't sure he was quite able to convey the genuine terror he felt trapped there like that. Seph took in all his impressions with her usual non-plussed air, which Kavinsky—if Adam was reading him right—was all the more tense for. 

Later, once they had concluded their session and dropped Seph back at Fox Way, K said, “I don't think she gets it.”

“She gets it,” Adam assured him. He and K were more or less back to normal. Kavinsky’s pretense at reservation towards him dumped, but not dumped hard enough for Adam. Though he was certain _that_ was only a concession for him. Still it was better than the past week.

“Obviously she knows I pulled you back from that thing’s clutches, but I don't think she gets that I was only able to do that because of what _she_ taught us.”

Adam shrugged. He didn't think it was so much that Persephone was missing the whole point, but that she genuinely didn't think of life and death things like everyone else. 

They drove another block in silence.

“I think,” K said, before his tone became resolute, “I’m gonna throw her a thank you party.”

 

 

 

 

 

Adam had been napping when he got the phone call. 

He’d been stretched out on the living room sofa, doing his lit reading, when he was hit by a wave of sleepiness. He felt like he would drift off whether or not he closed his eyes and considering he had work later that night, Adam closed them. 

The fact that his phone had even started ringing was disorienting in and of itself. Hardy anyone called when he was at Kavinsky’s. K’s dream phones were immune to sales calls and typically everyone who _would_ call him was already in the room.

So his confusion was only doubled when he held up the screen and saw Gansey’s name on the caller ID. The others kept their distance when he was at Kavinsky’s; which was to say Ronan still didn’t use his phone, Blue didn’t have one, and even after their agreement to let things lie, Gansey still mostly only texted him to finalize Sunday plans—whether they would meet at Monmouth or head out to Cabeswater, what time, and the like.

Something rather pleased burst through Adam, as he swiped yes to the _accept?_ and put the phone to his ear at the thought that Gansey had seemingly got over his squeamishness about contacting him when he was with K. But Gansey didn’t give him time to get out a greeting before he explained the reason for his call and everything in Adam went cold. 

“Text me if there’s somewhere specific I can check,” Adam said, dragging a hand down his face. “I’m gonna—I’ll start looking as soon as I can.”

Adam hung up, and leaving his book on the couch, hurried to the back deck where Kavinsky and Swan were. His breath feeling too shallow with every step. 

“We’re doing lines,” K explained unsolicited when Adam slid the screen open and stepped out. Swan snorted and K amended, “Of a respectable sort.”

“K is an unsurprisingly good Lady MacBeth,” Swan observed. Then after taking a closer look at Adam, “Everything alright there, Ivy?”

“I’m going to call in that favor now,” Adam said to Kavinsky.

“Whoa! Whoa, there,” K said standing up. “Whoa, babe.”

“What’s going on?” Swan asked. 

“Blue’s missing. None of her family has seen her all day. She’s not scheduled at Nino’s. She’s not with Gansey or the others. She doesn’t have a phone. She—” he looked at his wrist watch it was past three. She had asked to borrow the car early that morning and no one had seen her since. It wasn’t like Blue to just _disappear_. People didn’t just disappear.

“Adam, take a breath,” Swan said. 

One possibility was that the car had broke down. Persephone kept mentioning how Maura never took it in to check the belt. Adam had considered peeking in on it himself, but K had been with him or one of the other ladies was always taking it for some errand. Adam was actually glad he had never checked on the Ford though, because there was the equally likely possibility that this had something to do with Greenmantle and his vendetta against everything the Grey Man cared about—which now included Blue. He felt the bile rise at the back of his throat. Maybe he really should have given more thought to Ronan’s blackmailing scheme to get Greenmantle out of Henrietta and their lives. But if this was him, it was already too late for Blue.

Kavinsky was hedging up into his space now, movements only stilted enough to let Adam know he was coming before K was actually touching him, fingers tilting Adam’s jaw up. 

“Hey, look at me,” K said. 

Adam met K’s eyes. The afternoon light made their light brown look like a translucent dark ale, he thought absurdly.

“Breathe, babe,” Kavinsky commanded. “C’mon, big breath.”

Adam took a breath.

“Again, c’mon, deep breath. C’mon. Swan,” Kavinsky jerked his head.

“On it,” Swan said as he headed inside, phone already in his hand. 

“We’ll find her,” K assured him.

“We have no leads.”

“Don’t worry your pretty head. We’ll find her.”

 

 

 

 

 

Kavinsky and his pack were not, in fact, the ones to find Blue. But that wasn’t for lack of trying. K marshaled the pack, directing them to track down leads in places Adam hadn’t thought of with his own head so clouded with worry. Two hours into the search and Gansey had texted Adam he had a promising lead. Not long after that came the text that he and Calla had found her and Blue was alright. 

But he couldn’t just take Gansey’s text for it. So Adam was sitting on the porch steps of Fox Way in the dying light of evening, waiting for proof— _them_ —to return. He’d tried to reach K, but weirdly his call had rung out to voicemail. Adam hung up before he was forced to leave a message. More from the fact that Adam couldn’t quite let himself fully believe she was safe till he saw her with his own eyes, he refrained from contacting the rest of the pack. 

The Fox Way car was the first to return. Adam got to his feet once Calla had parked on the curb and was stalking up the walk. She held up her hand, before he could even open his mouth, and spit out, “She’s fine.”

Calla disappeared inside and Adam sat back down. He looked at his phone. K still hadn’t returned his call or texted him back. 

Not even two minutes later, he heard the pig’s engine rumbling through the neighborhood. It took Gansey an eternity to park and then for Blue and him to cross the street and come up the walk.

Adam stood back up, phone clutched in his hand, watching them approach. She looked fine. 

“You're all right,” he stated, taking Blue in.

She nodded, chagrined. 

Adam scrolled through his contacts and moved off the porch. 

“You should hear what she was doing out there though,” Gansey said, to Adam’s retreating back. 

“I’ll be in a minute. I just need to call Swan,” Adam said stopping and turning back a ways out across the lawn. “Let him know they can stop looking.”

“You had Kavinsky’s crew looking for me?” Blue asked.

Adam met her eyes for a moment before the call connected, then he turned, “Hey, they've found her.”

“Did she come back in one piece?” Swan asked.

“Yeah, I think so. Gansey would have said something otherwise,” Adam said, and then let a beat go by before asking, “What’s K up to?”

“He was questioning some people last time he checked in,” Swan said, carefully. This was clearly a euphemism. Adam pinched the bridge of his nose. “Might have left his phone in the mitsu.”

“Tell the others I’m sorry for wasting their time.”

“Don’t apologize,” Swan said. “We would have done it even without K’s call to arms. If you had asked.” 

That seemed hard to believe. He knew that the pack liked him, were willing to go through a lot of trouble on his account, and all but considered him one of their own. But this ....seemed like more trouble than he was worth. Or rather he wasn’t sure their fondness for him outweighed their hatred of Gansey and Lynch. Last time K and Blue had spoke, they were trading insults and Adam knew the pack had heard all about it. The fact that Blue associated with Gansey, for who they held infinite distain, and Ronan, official persona non grata, did not help her case either. 

“You don’t even like Blue,” Adam blurted and then resisted the urge to clunk his head against the nearest tree. Adam swore he could _hear_ Swan’s eyebrows as they rose up his forehead. 

“Can’t say I know her too well,” Swan finally allowed, still _displeased_ with Adam’s assumption. “That really doesn’t matter anyway. Nobody deserves to be raped, cut into twenty pieces, and dumped in some backwoods.”

“Was that what you thought happened?”

“I bet that’s what her family thought.”

 

 

 

 

 

Adam let himself into K’s house half-dead on his feet, after his late shift and the worried mess of the day. To top it all off, he’d gotten from Blue the psychics prediction that Gansey would die by the end of the year. As Skov would say: this is why they couldn’t have anything nice. To Adam it was par for the course; just one thing after another. He grabbed a glass of water, as was his habit, and went downstairs to see if anyone was still awake. 

Though K had moved on from his interest in bioluminescence, there was still a mix of _Planet Earth_ on the projector and, like was playing now, _The Universe_ , which fit perfectly with his new inexplicable fascination with black holes.

Skov and Noah were spread out on one of the back couches. Up front K was the only one awake with Proko curled up next to him on one side and Swan on the other, konked out and snoring lightly. Jiang, clearly the smartest, was the only one who seemed to have, assumably, made it upstairs to a bed. Adam didn’t think twice about settling himself between K and Swan. 

“Hey, Ivy,” K said low, eyes not leaving the screen. For an afternoon of ‘questioning,’ K did not look worse for wear.

“Hey, babe,” Adam returned.

“You’re cute,” K said in a dry voice, but his lips had quirked up.

“No witnesses.”

“Ahhhh,” K intoned. “Clever.”

Adam let his eyes fall shut. 

“Thanks for today,” Adam said. “I know that wasn’t you’re idea of a good time.”

“Please,” K said. “You are beyond welcome.”

Adam fell asleep to Neil deGrasse Tyson explaining the secrets of the universe in his reassuring voice. 

 

 

 

 

 

Adam sat at the kitchen island on a rare quiet Sunday morning. 

When he’d called in on Thursday—citing a personal emergency, which was rather dishonest, but in another sense really hadn’t been a lie at all—his manager, who had always been sensitive to Adam’s need for as many hours as he could get, said he would call him if they needed an extra hand next week. With how slow things had been, Adam knew they wouldn’t call him in. But he wasn’t as worried about his current lack of hours as he had been a week ago. 

The cut of K’s drug money would cover the remaining Ag tuition, his rent, food, the college application fees he couldn’t get waived or reduced, gas, _and_ general upkeep on the shitbox. And none of it would be touched by taxes. Laumonier had given them real money in exchange for K’s product and each one of them got an even portion. The drive back to Henrietta had been surreal, jubilant, and greasy from the excess of fast food they’d made a pit stop for. Once they were back in the basement, K had split the money up six ways.

Proko had pushed Adam’s stack across the coffee table at him, but Adam didn’t dare touch it. The one hundred and sixty-six crisp bills made for an absurdly small stack—it would have been even smaller if it wasn’t impossible to break a hundred in a town like Henrietta. It was hard to believe that was eight grand. It was hard to believe it was his. 

“You better take that, Ivy, before someone gets the idea you don’t want it,” Skov said, fanning out his own fifties and flapping them in front of his face. Adam hadn’t really thought the others would notice his hesitance. Jiang had taken his stack, flipped through it, counting, and then stuffed it in his hoodie’s front pouch. Then he climbed into one of the theater seats and pulled out his phone. The others weren’t quite as nonchalant, but they had all been through this before.

Slowly, Adam picked up the stack. 

Swan had clapped him on the shoulder and Adam leaned into the gesture. It was a lot. 

The money, which played a shockingly small influence in his decision to go along, was still his. Adam wasn’t about to quit any of his jobs, but for the first time in his life he felt like he could breathe. He was no longer just scraping by. It didn’t have to be paycheck to paycheck. He didn’t have to do it a cheaper way now if he didn’t want to. He didn’t need to kill himself over getting another shift. The groveling for extra hours was something he’d bore, because it had been necessary. But he never wanted the pity that came with asking for more, even if he _was_ useful and a good worker.

So Adam was enjoying the warm rays of the autumn sun as it filtered through the glass panes behind him over a lazy breakfast at K’s house, like so many that had filled their summer. 

Well, they weren’t eating _yet_. Kavinsky was looking for the cereal. It was not where he had left it. A few days before, Swan in all his six foot two glory had more than somewhat vindictively placed it in the very top cabinet above the stove. When Swan had turned around and saw Adam had seen him he just smirked and put a finger to his lips. Adam had merely shrugged. It wasn’t as if K hadn’t brought that on himself. 

“Fucking Swan,” K grumbled, as he reached up on the tips of his toes for the box. Adam watched as his fingertips barely brushed the corner and, briefly, he thought to get up and just grab it. But there was something about K’s body stretched out like that. All the lines of him reaching, fingers extended. The tense muscles of his calves, to his bare feet, up on his tip toes; poised.

Adam admired Kavinsky as he continued to struggle until he jumped for the box and missed. Adam glanced away. Why couldn’t he just climb up on the counter and be done with it? Adam honestly wished K was tormenting him on purpose, instead of this inadvertent display. “Don’t expect me to sympathize.”

“I cannot _believe_ your taking his side,” K said, catching Adam’s eye out of the corner of his own, as he pulled open an utensil drawer and grabbed a pair of long grilling tongs. He snapped them a few times in Adam’s general direction before turning back to his prize: a brand new box of Lucky Charms. 

Now his tank was riding up. Something in Adam flipped over and he looked down into his cup of blueberry pomegranate juice. The thing was what Adam had caught a glimpse of was nothing new. K’s default wife beaters were meant to be _under-shirts_. They were _form-fitting_ , leaving little to the imagination. The fact that he already had a general idea didn’t change how he reacted when presented with parts of K uncovered. This was stupid. 

Adam wanted too many things. 

What had begun back in July as a study to discern Kavinsky’s motives, hadn’t stopped when it became obvious Adam wouldn’t find a trace of those intentions. He kept watching K. Still snuck looks like these; glancing looks that skittered up from the curved arch of K’s foot to the way his dark hair fell into his eyes as he reached up; how Adam could still make out the small angry pink scar on K’s brow from the fight with Peugeot. 

For the longest time, Adam hadn’t acted on the urge to _look_. 

He’d see a boy he thought was beautiful and he’d look away. Because boys from the trailer park didn’t look at other boys the way Adam sometimes found his eyes looking. He knew what happened to the ones who did. Adam had schooled himself to take boys in at a glance, to remove himself from his gaze, and to look away if it came down to it. 

It was a matter of survival. But he had let himself look at Kavinsky. 

The truth was he had been looking for a while, but to admit that he had would imply that those looks could lead some where, and for the longest time that hadn’t been the case. Adam had been told often enough that he was too reserved, hard to read, and all together rather inscrutable. Adam didn’t think he was that mysterious. At the very least, he was sure that wasn’t true among people who knew him; of which the pack was now considered. They’d caught him at it more than once now; watching Kavinsky. It wasn’t like K’s business wasn’t their business. It wasn't like _his business_ wasn’t their’s either now. But just as how they clearly knew more about what was going on with K’s dreams, him, and Cabeswater than they were letting on, this too went unmentioned. Which struck Adam as odd. Unless K had bribed them like he had done with Swan. Or maybe to them this wasn’t even worth mentioning. It certainly felt like it was worth mentioning.

_You'll get you're fill_ , he’d told himself on more than one occasion. 

So far that hadn't been the case and given time, he didn't find K's appeal to lessen—when had he begun thinking of it as an appeal? It grew, not in the spiky snags of lust. So much worse, inexplicably in the tendrils of longing, of _fondness_ , even his horrible jokes were endearing. Because it wasn’t like K had forgone his fuckboy histrionics. 

It would be one thing if K were conventionally attractive. Adam was horribly attracted to him, but objectively Kavinsky really wasn't. He was wiry, sharp, with dark insomniac bruises under his eyes—something Gansey despite his own battles with the Sand Man never seemed to get. From what Adam could gather, most people were actually attracted to—not even so much Kavinsky’s personality— but his reputation; the things he did, and the things he could get for them. 

This aura of danger was what attracted Ronan to Kavinsky, Adam thought. K’s provocation of sultry nights full of fast cars, parties, and trouble was what Ronan had wanted. But Adam had no such excuses. Sure, he'd seen K at his dangerous and indeed most seductive, but Adam also saw Kavinsky in the mornings after those nights; gaunt eyes too sharp, not hungover—K never took anything that left him properly hungover—but he would be taciturn, flat-out irritable if pressed, and ravenously hungry. Far from appealing, and more to the point, Kavinsky’s reputation had never been a pull for Adam. 

Almost without even realizing it, Adam had begun to think of K as _his_ constant.

K was just always there. He was genuinely _invested_ in Adam. It was Kavinsky who had saved his life out on the line. K who dropped everything to help him when he asked. It was K’s presence that was steady at his back. And Adam knew K would be there for him whether they got _together_ or just remained friends. 

 

 

 

 

 

It was nearly ten thirty by the time Adam pulled into the Monmouth lot. After the worry of Saturday, nobody was in the mood to explore the Dittley cave—not that they could have if they were up for it, as Blue had, for all intents and purposes, been grounded. The following Sunday, it was agreed, would be the day of exploration. The clouds that had rolled in during the night were still lingering. 

Today would be nothing but an easy drive to some stops Mallory expressed an interest in seeing, and Gansey, who had already seen them while heavily canvassing the region the year before when he had first moved to Henrietta, was willing to visit again in order to spend some more time with Mallory. In the awkward post-retrieval of Blue but before her revelation of Gansey’s predicted death, he had invited Adam to join them the following day. Gansey had also proposed a nine o'clock departure time, but Adam and Mallory had pushed that back an hour and a half. An early start was all very well for Gansey, but Adam still had a whole shift at work ahead of him the night before and Mallory had his own reasons for protestations; something to do with an overwhelming amount of auras, or so Adam had thought he had heard.

Adam got out of the car and begun to make his way across the lot when Gansey walked out of Monmouth toward the Suburban, thermos in hand. It was the first time Adam had seen Gansey since he had learned of the prediction and he paused.

Gansey looked so alive in his polo, the color of eggplant, and some khaki chino shorts. It was hard to believe the collective psychic knowledge of Fox Way—including Blue, who had none to speak of whatsoever—predicted Gansey’s death by the end of the year. Though this did fall inline with what Adam had seen in the husk of the dreaming tree. 

Earlier that Spring, Adam had witnessed the dreaming tree’s prophecy and assumed it was telling the truth, merely because it had been in the forest. But the sinister force behind that door in the cave was separate from Cabeswater, and if it could be a separate entity than perhaps the dreaming tree was as well. 

It could be lying. It could be evil. They’d been silly to be so trusting. 

When Adam had stood in side the hollowed out trunk, it had felt like an inevitability. In the months since however, so many things which had seemed immovable had shifted; his relationship with Lynch and Gansey, living with his folks and perhaps most shocking his friendship with Kavinsky and the pack.

Nothing was set in stone.

“Adam,” Gansey said in greeting. 

Adam snapped back to the present. Gansey was much closer and looking at him with this odd fixed expression, like he had just finished evaluating Adam and found him wanting in some way.

“Hey, Gansey.”

“Do you need anything inside? Or are you ready to go?”

“All set,” Adam answered and wondered again, in spite of their agreement to let things lie, if this was all their relationship would ever be now; just Glendower. It used to be more, he’d thought.

Gansey told him that Mallory was on his way down and Adam could get in the car. Five minutes later, he’d loaded up the equipment in to the trunk, Mallory and his Dog had greeted Adam, and surprisingly Ronan had slid in on the other side of the backseat. 

Adam was not sure exactly why Ronan had decided to come as well. Ronan mentioned that he had caught an early service, but that hardly answered Adam’s question. While Ronan hadn't said as much, Adam got the impression that he disliked Mallory and he knew that Ronan didn’t care for any of the stops they would be making today in the slightest. Stops, of which, there were many. So many that even Adam found it getting a bit dull, so he kept up a barrage of texts with K. The pack was just chilling at K’s—lamenting the fact Kavinsky didn’t have a pool and eating girl scout cookies. K was with them. He hadn’t had too many orders this week, but he did send Adam a picture of a fake he’d dreamt up.

 

 

 

 

 

They finally stopped for a late lunch at this lodge-style place off the highway. It was all exposed log beams and a menu of steak briskets, potato mash, and family sized roasts. They’d missed lunch rush, so the fact that they were seated at a table in the middle of the dining room wasn’t a problem and the orders went in with minimal fuss.

Adam’s phone vibrated in his pocket with a double text.

It was one thing to check his phone in the car or on a hike, but something else to pull it our while they were all seated at a table for lunch. Still he’d been waiting on a reply from K for the better part of an hour. Gansey and Mallory had taken out a map again. Adam discreetly checked his phone under the table. The new messages were not from K, but Jiang.

Adam opened Jiang’s message thread and scrolled to his first new text and a video that followed.

_you missed all the action_

The video was of Skov poised to lay a kiss on a blurry Noah's cheek, who's lips were spread wide in a toothless smile. Adam tapped the picture and Skov sprang into motion. Instead of dropping a chaste kiss on Noah, he blew a wet raspberry. Noah let out a delighted soundless chuckle and beaming, he hooked fingers with Skov, before turning fully to kiss him on the lips. This was enthusiastically received and the video kept going in rather grotesque detail till Skov flipped Jiang the middle finger.

The video looped back and Adam let it run, appreciating it a second time.

It was pure unrestrained joy.

Adam sent Jiang a all caps key smash, because he had gathered that was how to properly express his joy and shock, and he texted a congrats to the new couple via Skov’s number. Then flicked over to his message thread with K, which was still conspicuously devoid of new messages.

_you didn’t want to tell me the big news?_

K’s reply was near instantaneous; three messages in quick succession.

_oh no i totally did._  
_but Jiang won the bet_  
_i think they are good together_

_me too_ , Adam agreed.

“Your young magician must have just received some rather happy news,” a voice observed from across the table breaking into his thoughts. Adam looked up, startled, and found Mallory watching him with a slight smile.

Adam hadn’t even realized he _was_ smiling till he felt his cheeks relax from the force of his fading grin. Adam shook his head, dismissing himself, saying, “Just a text.”

He put his phone away feeling the weight of both Gansey and Ronan’s eyes on him. 

“Hmmmm. If it’s not to forward of me to ask, young man,” Mallory continued. “Gansey mentioned it was _you_ who woke this ley line and are now working with it too,” he paused searching for the word, “'clean it up,' I believe was his exact verbiage. Would you be willing to elaborate at all?”

 

 

 

 

 

Adam and Ronan had hardly spoken since their exchange in the Ag bathroom on that second day of school. In fact, Adam had noticed that Ronan was barely even attending classes. So it was somewhat of a surprise as Adam came back from taking a piss and found Ronan waiting just inside the edge of the brush. 

Adam looked at him, just standing there and moved to walk back out. 

“Adam,” Ronan said, halting his progress, but it was several seconds before he continued, “This thing with Kavinsky.” He wasn't looking at Adam. “Don't feel obligated to keep it up.”

“What?”

“It's not necessary.”

“Not. Necessary,” Adam repeated, confused and _concerned._

“This isn’t as life and death as you're treating it,” Ronan said with a huff.

Adam made an unintelligible noise of exasperation, because it was exactly as life and death as Adam thought it was. He would have died if K hadn't dragged him from that room. All summer Ronan, Gansey, Blue, and Matthew had been using the forest as a place of relaxation and amazing magic, while Adam was the one working to keep it there at all. Ronan, he knew, took it for granted that Cabeswater would _be_ there. How else could he say something like that with Aurora’s situation the way it was.

“Do I really need to remind you that your mom is only awake because she’s in Cabeswater? What do you think is going to happen to her if K dreams without a limit again?”

Ronan sighed.

“What about Noah?” Adam asked, savagely pressing on. “Don't forget about him. Every time y'all asked if he wasn't around assuming K was going behind my back. What did he say? That he was doing so much better with only him and Cabeswater using the line.”

“Adam—”

“What? What are you trying to get at?” Adam demanded. “How could you even think that this isn't necessary?”

He waited but Ronan only locked his jaw. After a second of glaring at him, Ronan moved passed, further into the over-growth. 

Adam tried to shake off how bizarre that interaction was as he climbed back up the short hill to the road.

“Where's Ronan?” Gansey asked when Adam emerged from the brush alone. All of Mallory’s equipment was back in the car and even Mallory had bundled himself inside again.

“Stomped off somewhere.”

Gansey’s mouth turned down and he pulled out his phone. 

 

 

 

 

 

The sky was darkening when they finally turned back towards Henrietta. Mallory and Gansey had run out of things to say at the last stop and a comfortable silence filled the SUV.

Adam pulled open the video of Noah and Skov again.

Something had lurched in him when he’d watched the clip the first time and seeing them again now, so casual, so comfortable with each other. The ease with which they gave each other affection melted something in Adam.

He wanted that with K.

There was no ‘but’ this time. Or if there was it didn’t matter. If Skov and Noah, faced with an insurmountable void, still wanted to be together, really what was stopping Adam and K? This had been at the heart of the conversation he’d been having with himself for the past week and a half. It seemed stupid— _silly_ for him to have taken this long to realize that he really didn’t care. So what if he and K had to try doing long distance once they graduated. No distance would be as far as the one between life and death—which Skov and Noah made seem like nothing. He been wasting time he and K could have already been together deliberating this.  

The truth rose from the depths of Adam’s unconsciousness. Adam wanted to kiss Kavinsky like that. He wanted to hold K’s hand like that. He wanted that easy affection. He wanted K to give it to him and more importantly he thought he could give it to K. He wanted _K_. 

Adam wanted to be _with_ K.

There wasn’t a single good reason he shouldn’t be.

 

 

 

 

 

_what are the plans this week?_  
_i work mon and tues nights_

_jiang has a tat thing on wed_

_are we invited? haven’t heard anything about it_

_he’s taking proko? idk bout the rest of us_  
_assume no_

_wow_

_yeah_

_we should do something without them_

_YES_  
_WE SHOULD_  
_movie night?_

_works for me_

 

 

 

 

 

Ostensibly, Adam was working on his calculus when Kavinsky slid into the seat across the table from him. Really he’d been staring at the emergency exit sign lost in thought, trying to figure out a way to save Gansey’s life. 

If it was Adam who caused this, like the dreaming tree suggested, then he should be able to _prevent_ it. He had taken stock of all the details of the scene so he would know it before it came to pass. What Gansey was wearing, what part of Cabeswater they were in, how Blue was there, but Noah was not. But what if the dreaming tree was lying and Gansey died from something else? A hornet’s sting or the floor falling out from underneath him in a cavern tunnel. 

“You still shaken about your ex-girlfriend’s trip to the backwoods?” K asked breaking Adam out of his worrying. Kavinsky’s tone was dubious, slightly scornful, but there was something in the set of his jaw that made Adam think he was more invested in the answer to his question than the overall indifferent attitude he was projecting suggested. Adam knew why.

Still, Adam couldn't tell K he was really trying to think of a way to save Gansey’s life. Though he knew K could keep secrets and Kavinsky had thoroughly demonstrated time and time again that he had Adam’s back—hell, Kavinsky had saved his life—that respect and fondness and whatever else K felt for Adam never cleared Gansey of mockery. 

“Blue got us access to the Dittley cave,” he covered, not looking up from his notebook. “We’re probably going in next Sunday.”

Kavinsky hummed, likely having caught on to Adam not telling the whole truth, but not the real reason behind his continued worry. Adam kept looking at the practice problems pretending to be completely engrossed. If he didn’t look at K, he wouldn’t be able to prove anything. Kavinsky surprisingly changed the subject, “Since we didn’t actually find her, I think that favor I owe you is still good.”

“You all still looked for her,” Adam frowned. “We’re fine.”

“I asked you to come to a drop, you came, and we did business. But you asked us to _find_ her and we didn’t. We aren’t even by my count.”

“I said we’re fine, K.”

“We’re not and if this is you telling me you won’t be cashing in that IOU, then I’m gonna have to go out of my way to fix something up for you, special.”

Adam very carefully looked at his thirteenth calculus problem. He needed to draw a parabola. That was the whole reason why he had taken his lunch break in the library. Adam had to use a graphing calculator, like the teacher wanted them to, and since he didn’t _own_ one, Adam had checked one out from the circulation desk. Not that he couldn’t have borrowed Proko’s no problem. Adam understood the need to keep a clear ledger, but he was pretty sure Kavinsky would want to do it with a dream thing. “I don’t think that will fall within our terms.”

“Hurm. You won’t complain once you see what it is....”

“K-”

“Or I could always just send you a dick pic instead.”

Adam set down his pen, finally looking up at K with raised eyebrows. “Unsolicited nudes? That sounds more like the Joey K we all know and loathe.”

“Oh ha ha, here I am trying to be decent and you just cut me down,” K said, but he was smiling, shameless and pleased to have finally made Adam dispose of his pretense of inattention. “Besides, only the first is unsolicited. Once you see what I’ve got going on, you’ll be asking for them all night long.”

“If it’s _that_ impressive, believe me, I’ll just come find you.”

Kavinsky actually stared at Adam for a whole second before letting out a hoot of laughter, causing several other students to look up in annoyance. K leaned across the pine wood table, looking at Adam over his shades, grin wide and wicked, and asked, “Who knew Adam Parrish could be such a _flirt_?”

Something shuddered through Adam. The emphasis K put on the word made it sound dirty as all hell and like that was just the way he liked it.

Adam shrugged, unable to stop the matching grin that spread over his own face. Out of the corner of his eye, Adam caught the librarian making a beeline towards them to castigate K for his disruption of the quiet space, but Adam couldn’t really bring himself to care when K’s eyes were on him like that. Dark and hungry, like he wanted to eat him.

Adam wasn’t sure his own weren’t saying just how much he’d like that.

Kavinsky _winked_ at Adam, causing yet another flip of his insides, before he got up and waltzed out the library’s back door, so his presence wouldn’t get Adam kicked out of the study area. 

K was trying to kill him. Adam knew it.

 

 

 

 

 

Restlessly Adam turned over in his bed. He laid in the new position for ten seconds and then kicked off the blankets. 

His shift had gone late and he hadn’t got home till twelve. Adam had taken a shower, heated up some water for Top Ramen, and then dug into his homework, finally calling it quits at two am. For what felt like forever, he had been begging his mind to shut off and let him fall asleep. But it was no good and there was school tomorrow. 

Heaving a sigh he reached over to his phone on the makeshift nightstand and pressed the power button. The blue white light of the screen said it was three thirty-eight am.

Adam wondered if K was awake right then. Being best friends with Gansey for a year and half meant that Adam had a working knowledge of insomnia by proxy, as Adam himself was so perpetually exhausted that sleep was never consistently elusive with him. Just occasionally. 

He opened up his text thread to K. Adam had it in his mind that he would tell Kavinsky he wanted to try dating too the next time they were alone together. But there was a part of him that wanted to do it right then. Just to put it out there and to put K at ease. Of course, doing that over text would be stupid. Still Adam would have gone ahead and done it if he didn’t fully expect to be alone with K tomorrow night. Because Adam had been thinking about things: what he wanted, how to get there, what to say, what to do when he had it. Where they would be when this was all over. Late night while trying to drift off to sleep had always been Adam’s time for unearthing answers to these questions. But now he realized he needed to know what K's answers were too. 

Except these were questions too big to ask over text. So instead he tapped out, 

_what do you even do right now?_

_like tonight or in general?_

_both._

_i found this is the best time to shoot a game of pool or three_  
_sometimes proko will take a stim and keep me company_

_generous of him_

_not really_

It was hard to decipher bitter resignation over a text, but Adam thought he could hear it all the same. 

_and tonight?_

_research_

_on what pray tell_

_aren't you curious ivy_

He could just _hear_ K saying it.

_i can't sleep_

_biology_  
_it's for an art project i want to try_

_you do art?_

_when the impulse strikes yeah_

_why have I never seen one of your pieces?_

_you don't consider shelley to be a work of art?_  
_thanks a lot ivy_

Adam hadn’t thought of the fish like that. There was no denying that when he first saw Shelley he had thought it was beautiful. Genuinely frightening but beautiful.

_I hadn’t thought of em like that_ and then because he felt like a bit of an ass _i’m no art critique, but they are beautiful_  
_your creatures_

_everyone’s entitled to their opinion but idgaf about art critics_  
_fuckos_

_is that what you want to do career wise?_  
_be an artist_

Adam specified again. He didn’t want K thinking he was baiting him. Adam needed this conversation to remain serious.

There was a long pause. 

_u know i never thought of that_  
_well id thought of it but not srsly_  
_it’s something i could see myself doing tbh_

_what had you thought of seriously?_

_oh what? drug dealer doesn’t have good enough prospects?_

Adam would have said that was a good _hobby_ for K.

_i’m an ace party planner_

_no arguments here_

When K didn’t text back immediately, Adam hit the power button to dim his phone and stared up at the ceiling, the yellowish light cast on the plaster through the slats of his blinds. About a minute, later his phone vibrated.

_bio-chem_

Adam propped himself up, thoughts clicking together at a rapid clip, outpacing his fingers as he typed: _you want to try and make your creatures outside of dreams_

_something like that_

Adam laid back on his pillow, mind clicking along at the same tired-tireless pace, but seeing so many possibilities before them.

 

 

 

 

 

“You haven't seen _The Princess Bride_? K asked scandalized, as he set the reheated pizza—leftovers from the pack’s dinner yesterday—on the coffee table before throwing himself on the couch next to Adam. “It’s a classic!”

Their movie night had, as Adam hoped, worked out to just be him and K. Jiang had spirited Proko off to that event at his mentor’s tattoo parlor. Swan was ‘running lines’ with Ryang. Skov and Noah were at the skate park, but it was just him and Kavinsky in the basement.

“I've been a bit preoccupied,” Adam laughed. If anyone was to blame, it would have to be Skov. If this movie was such a cinematic masterpiece, he should have bumped it up his ‘Must See’ list.

“It's only ninety-eight minutes of pure genius,” K said, double clicking on the .mp4 file and grabbing one of the slices of supreme, before settling in. Adam followed suit.

The movie was _funny_. Adam realized a number of phrases that had seemed cryptic before— _murdered by pirates is good_ —and some of the banter between Skov and Swan— _Vicini, he can fuss; fuss, fuss...I think he like to scream at us; probably he means no harm; he’s really very short on charm_ —were actually quotes from _The Princess Bride_. He could see why it was a cult favorite and was distracted by it despite himself. 

Adam was ridiculously on edge, because he knew that tonight, with the two of them alone in the basement, was the perfect opportunity to tell K that he wanted to be together too. 

Once Adam had made that decision, he’d been able to relax somewhat this week, though not completely. He wanted to tell K as soon as possible, but he also needed to do it right. Any and all lulls in mental activity during work or school were dedicated to coming up with that. Adam got the feeling K would be happy any way he told him. But Adam wanted it to be right and throughout the entirety of the film he had this little nagging voice in the back of his head asking what would happen if some of the others appeared and ruined the moment. As much as he genuinely enjoyed his time with the rest of the pack and appreciated them, this thing between him and K was just that, between him and K; and their first moments of each other should be their’s alone.

Maybe Adam had been hoping whatever they ended up watching would suck, but somehow he hadn’t considered how difficult it would be to sit with this on his tongue for an entire movie.

When the end credits came on, Adam turned to Kavinsky with some expectation. But he didn’t turned back. As every actor was shown with a clip of their character, the different colors from the projector were reflected on the gold of his earring.

K was so beautiful. 

Adam reached out a hand across the back of the couch and found his fingers brushing through the short hairs growing at the nape of K's neck. It had grown out since July and no longer kept itself to an orderly v. Adam wondered if he would get a haircut soon.

Only when the real credits began to roll up the screen did K mute the song and turn to face Adam. 

There was an intensity in his eyes Adam had seen before. Adam knew exactly what it was. He was certain it was reflected back in his. It felt like he had been working up to this moment all night.

“I want to be with you,” Adam whispered.

“Took your time about it.”

“I wanted to be sure.”

K scooted across the space between them and kissed him. Their lips fit together for a brief moment, before he pulled back slightly to say, “I’m glad.”

Kavinsky’s own hand was on Adam’s neck, stroking and setting off a soft fluttering of wings in his abdomen, as his lips met K’s again. 

One of Adam’s hands found its way under a tank top strap, running his fingers along K's collarbone. How many times had he thought about touching K there? And here he was finally doing it. 

Apparently they weren't close enough because Kavinsky climbed on to Adam’s lap. As immediate as turning a dial to open up a camera aperture, Adam was aware of where all this kissing _could_ lead. 

They were alone in the house. 

The prospect sent a rapid flush up along his spine, which was only intensified as K’s hands found their way under his shirt. He breathed deep and felt the pads of K’s fingers drag down the side of his ribcage. 

While K was touching him everywhere he could reach and kissing him like his life depended upon it, Adam’s hands dropped to the hem of K’s wife-beater and went up the sides of K’s back. He let his fingers slide down the nobs of K’s spine, from the base of his neck, the vertebrae arcing up all the way to the small of his back, then Adam gripped his hips and tried to pull him closer. 

There was no hiding what this was doing to either of them, pressed together like this.

K pressed his advantage, reaching down between them and palming Adam through his jeans.

Adam let out a shaky breath.

“What do you want?” K asked.

“You.”

“You got me, babe. What do you _want_?”

“ _You_ ,” Adam repeated. It was stupid, but he didn’t know what to say beyond _this_. He was already so turned on. He didn’t know how to ask for more; what he would even do with more if he had it.

K took Adam’s hands and placed them on the button of his cargo shorts. Adam didn’t need any further suggestion and he undid K’s shorts, while Kavinsky did the same to his jeans. 

Adam got to K’s boxers faster than K got to his. He glanced up at K briefly, he watching him, and then Adam took K out. 

K let out a sharp exhale.

After three years of showers in the changing rooms of Ag, Adam had seen his fair share of cocks. The one he held now was definitely aroused, though, and Adam noted K was circumcised. Adam gave him an experimental stroke. The angle was weird, but he liked the effect his touch had on K.

“Ivy,” K actually moaned. That something flipped inside Adam again and more of his blood rushed downwards. Then K was pulling Adam out. He lined up their cocks, before giving them both a firm tug.

Adam went boneless into the couch. 

K’s grip on them was sure and rapacious. He was moving fast. Faster than Adam thought this should go. Faster than he wanted. For all K talked about them not fucking around, this—Adam wouldn’t have thought this was what K wanted. K was bringing him up right to the edge.

“What’s the rush? K—” Adam broke with a groan. He would have thought this should have been ...well, for lack of a better word, savored.

“Just want to get the edge off,” K said, relentlessly stroking them both closer.

“ _What?_ ” K was certainly going to do just that. Adam was not use to drawing this sort of thing out. He did what it took to get off, he took care of himself, and then went on with his day. To say that he had a hair-trigger would not have been precisely accurate, but K’s pace was relentless. 

K kissed his neck and instead pointed out, “You didn't ask what I wanted.”

“What do you want?” 

“I want you to fuck me,” K whispered into Adam’s ear.

Light burned beams through him and then were gone leaving Adam even more desperate. Too close, he grabbed K’s wrist, halting his movement and just willed himself not to blow it right then. When he was safely back from the edge, Adam said, “You shouldn't have said that.”

“We can take our time _after_ ,” K said. “If we take the edge off _now_.”

Adam’s heart did a stutter-stop at the thought of taking his time _fucking Kavinsky_.

“You want me to fuck you?” Adam asked, locking eyes with K.

K nodded, eyes not leaving Adam’s.

“Do you want to?”

Adam nodded. He really did. 

“Would you really be able to fuck me how you want to if we went straight to that right now?”

Adam scoffed, but took his hand off of K’s wrist.

K had his answer and went right back to his insistent pace. “Just think of it as twice the fun, babe.”

With that, Adam gave himself over to it and let the pleasure take him as soon as it came. Adam gasped and his toes curled into the plush carpet at the wonderful shock of his orgasm. Adam was dazed. 

K sat slumped on him breathing into his neck for a few minutes. Adam shifted K’s weight on his thighs slightly, as it was getting to him. Kavinsky kissed Adam, before he got up and went across the room to grab a couple kleenex’s. He wiped off his hand and then rifled in the mini fridge. Adam did up his pants. K came back with two bottles of water and held one out to Adam.

“Come on,” Kavinsky said, holding out his hand after they had had a couple gulps. Adam took it and K pulled him to his feet.

“Wanna give Shelley a show?”

“What I want is not to sit here tomorrow while you’re at work and only be able to think about how good it felt when you were inside me,” K said, as he gave Adam a little shove to punctuate each word as they went out the door and up the basement stairs.  

“K,” Adam’s grin was sharp when he looked over his shoulder and said, “You’re gonna be thinking about that no matter where you’re sitting.”

 

 

 

 

 

K knocked the door shut with his foot as Adam pulled him in further, walking backwards and kissing him. They moved across the the room like that till Adam’s calves hit the base of the bed and he fell back on it with a slight bounce. He shimmied up to the pillows, as Kavinsky kneeled and crawled up the bed after him, till he was perched on Adam’s hips, and then they were kissing again. 

Honestly, Adam could kiss K forever. If this were all there was, he would be fine with it. Perfectly content.

But a little voice in the back of his head kept reminding him that K wanted Adam to fuck him. _K wanted Adam to fuck him._ Having such a thing on the table made Adam want to move things along, when at any other time he’d be more than willing to take it slow. He let his fingers catch the hem of K's tank and tugged. K caught it half way up, sitting back and pulling it off in a glorious exposure of skin.

Adam had seen Kavinsky without a shirt on before, but it had never been like this.

K began to lift Adam’s own shirt. Adam sat up partially and helped him take it all the way off.

Then Adam laid back watching as K's hands, with the greatest reverence, touched his bare ribcage and trailed down to the skin of his stomach.

Adam had this soft fluttery thing in his abdomen. It made him nearly shake with possibility and nerves as he reached out. His fingers skittered up K's flank, over his ribs and the tattoo he had there—a lengthwise rectangle with a great deal of detail inside, that Adam wanted to take a closer look at. He could do that later.

Next were their pants and there was no elegant way to go about getting out of those. Once they were both naked—finally—there was this pause where they just looked at each other. 

They were really going to do this.

Adam felt his lips tug up in a smile. K’s answering grin was as pleased as Adam had ever seen him and then they were kissing again. Adam arched himself up to get some contact. K pressed down, bringing them flush. It was a relief for their cocks to touch again. Adam let his hands slide down K’s back and gripped K’s ass. K let out a ragged breath and the inhale that followed was just as shocked. 

He kissed him again, before inexplicably Kavinsky pulled away. Adam, bereft, tried to follow.

“K—”

“Hold on, babe,” K said. He hadn’t left the bed entirely but only pulled open a drawer in his bedside table and was now rummaging around. Adam knew what he was looking for.

Finally, after what was likely only twenty seconds, K dropped what he had pulled out of the drawer on the other side of the bed and took up his place just above Adam’s hips again. His first two fingers on his right hand had this clear viscous liquid smeared on them.

Adam watched him, rapt. Half-hard and lovely, K’s lube slicked fingers disappeared around behind him— _inside him,_ Adam assumed. K didn’t look away from Adam as he fingered himself; tongue at the corner of his mouth and brows knitting in this determined concentration. Adam was mesmerized.

When a muscle twitched in K’s cheek, and the corner of his mouth twisted down, Adam reached up. He cupped the back of K’s neck and pulled him down for a kiss. It was a long kiss and when they finally pulled away for breath Adam asked. “Do you want help—?” he trailed off gesturing towards K’s occupied hand.

K shook his head. “Almost done. You should—” and he broke off jerking his head toward the other side of the bed and the condom and lube, which looked suspiciously like a bottle of sunscreen. “Get ready.”

Adam grabbed the condom and set about getting it on. Once that was done and he had placed the wrapper on the bedside table, he picked up the sunscreen lube. 

By the time he had slicked himself up, K was done with his prep. He locked eyes with Adam and lined them up, before slowly sinking onto his cock.

A white fuzz filled Adam’s ear. He couldn’t for the life of him think of another moment in his life when he had felt this good.

“You with me, Ivy?” K asked once he’d bottomed out; Adam totally inside him.

Adam was really glad they’d already got off in the basement. 

“Yeah,” Adam said looking up at Kavinsky, suddenly struck with it all. 

_He was inside of K._

Then K started to _move_. The sensation was headlong and heavy. Adam could hardly believe the feeling of himself dragging in and out of Kavinsky. From an inborn urge for _more_ rather than any calculated move to achieve better cohesion, Adam thrust up. The noise K let out as a result was not as encouraging as one would like. 

“Try meeting me in the down stroke,” K said. 

“Yeah,” Adam said, but when he tried again, K’s expression was less than thrilled. 

“Need to wait just a half second longer.”

Adam felt like he was blindly reaching for something as opposed to really timing himself.

K laughed, “Ivy, you gotta wait for it.”

“Give me a second,” Adam said. He didn’t think it was supposed to be this hard. Not only did he have to establish the right timing but he would have to commit to that rhythm. Adam wondered if it was true that some people were just good at this naturally. It seemed mighty unfair that he would have to cultivate this into a talent if he wanted to have really good sex. Not that this wasn’t good. This was amazing, but Adam knew it could be even _better_. 

“I'm in no rush,” K laughed.

“Neither am I, but I want to do this right. Don't laugh at me,” Adam corrected on the breath of his own laugh.

“Babe,” K said a laugh still in his voice. “Babe, I'm not laughing at you.” 

He leaned down to kiss Adam.

Adam focused to time his thrust up to match K's downstroke. This effort was met with a more enthusiastic response from K as he stuttered, “Ah, Adam—”

“Joseph.”

Kavinsky made this loud keening noise and Adam felt a rush of hot tingles run up the back of his ribs. Adam had done that. He had done that to K. 

“Good?” Adam asked, focused on keeping that rhythm.

K, who had one hand braced on Adam’s breast and face tilted towards the ceiling, glanced down at Adam with steady intent, lips parted and breaths audible.

“You feel wonderful,” K said, with another greedy roll of his hips.

“Yeah, well,” Adam said a bit flustered, adjusting his grip on K's hips. Feeling the sturdy bones beneath his skin. “You—right now—are the sexiest thing I have ever seen.”

“Ivy, you're killing me,” K said, breathily, staring down at Adam.

“'m serious,” Adam said, watching as K worked himself up and down; his dick bobbing as he rocked, avariciously, meeting every one of Adam’s thrusts. “You're so greedy.”

“Oh my god,” K leaned down and kissed him. “Pot meet kettle.”

As one kiss dissolved into another, K’s pace slowed to these weak grinding strokes, until he finally paused.

“I may be greedy,” K said. “But I'm shit for stamina.”

“Must be out of practice,” Adam said, with a laugh.

“Ha,” K said, pulling off—excruciatingly—and patting Adam’s thigh. “Your turn.”

“Alright,” Adam said, bracing himself up on his elbows and scooting to the side, swapping places with K. When he slid back inside Kavinsky, Adam nearly choked on air. 

K was so _tight_.

“This good for you?” Adam asked when he started up and then shifted slightly for better leverage.

“You're amazing,” K said in a delighted breath of a laugh, which was cut off by a groan. Clearly a better angle.

Adam pulled back. Unable to leave anything more than open mouth kisses on Kavinsky's lips, really they were just breathing into each other's mouths at that point. Staring into each other’s eyes. 

“Joseph.”

Something flinched through K and he made a spasmodic, half scrambled movement to edge up the bed, that halted Adam abruptly. He wondered if K had been too eager, if he hadn't stretched enough, if Adam had gone too fast, too deep, too much, if Adam were doing it wrong—Adam pulled back.

“No no no no,” K gasped running the words into one. He locked his ankles behind Adam’s lower back and said, “Don't stop. Keep going. _Adam, please—_ ”

The depth of feeling he saw looking up at him from K’s eyes was intense. Adam wouldn’t let him down.

“Alright,” Adam said, resisting the urge to rest his forehead against K’s. “I won’t.”

“Good,” K said. “Jerk me off when you're close.”

Adam was already feeling too close as it was. 

Blackness had closed in at the edge of his vision, engulfing all but K. Out of the corner of his eye, shadows morphed into trees. Keeping Cabeswater out was more or less second nature. In the beginning, the forest had a difficult time understanding the boundaries of humans. One of the first things Persephone taught him was how to put up psychic barriers. Still, whenever Adam felt a strong emotion or if he was really distracted or preoccupied, he would find him self slipping up, Cabeswater slipping in. Right now he was feeling quite strongly and was totally distracted. His barriers were breaking down. He could hear the heavy pant of his and K's breathing and night crickets.

He reached between them and took K in his hand.

Adam had barely even finished his second stroke before K was coming. He tensed up, muscles convulsing around Adam, which triggered Adam. The force of his second orgasm of the night caused him to loose any semblance of control over what kept his mind separate from Cabeswater. 

The forest surrounded them instantly. 

The room was infected with the smell of earth and fresh dew. It over-powered the residue of laundry detergent that clung to K's sheets and the smell of filtered salt water in the fish tank. All the night noises of the forest and the wind through the branches mixed with their breathing and the strain of the mattress. 

He was breathing heavily into K's clavicle where he had collapsed. When he finally cracked an eye, Adam saw they were surrounded by trees.

Adam rolled off of K. The dissonance of being two places was disorienting, but he was too tired to throw his barriers back up. K’s breathing had more or less mellowed out and Adam was glad Kavinsky didn’t have to deal with the forest here. K’d probably think it was spoiling their evening on purpose. 

Several moments later, K broke the silence, not even opening his eyes to say, “If you wanted to fuck outside, you should have said.”

A beat passed as Adam turned to stare at K. He felt Cabeswater here with them too? But it was obvious, despite the euphoric grin on his face, K was serious but not offended. Adam laughed.

The glow from stars which were not actually above them were still lighting up K's skin. He was so beautiful. Adam leaned over and kissed him.

 

 

 

 

 

Adam woke to a golden dawn, the light spilling in through the open curtains over K’s bed; casting the room in honey yellow. His window at St. Agnes never afforded him a view of the sunrise.

He was actually surprised K was still next to him, seemingly asleep. Kavinsky had still been awake when Adam had drifted off the night before, dicking around on his phone. While Adam, turned on his side, watched him till his eyes grew too heavy and he let them fall shut. Adam was still lying on his side facing K, who was close, flopped more or less on his stomach with one arm stretched out between them. His face, angled towards Adam, was slack and breathing steady. His dark lashes fanned out against the top of his cheeks.

Adam wanted to reach out. But, shockingly, he had never seen K asleep before and Adam wasn't going to wake him up by being a creep. A fission of pride or pleasure or something bubbled through Adam at the implication that Joseph trusted him that much. Though, actually, he felt equally creepy just watching K sleep. 

_Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep—Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep—Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep—Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep_

Adam recognized the noise of his morning alarm, but it was still a fraction of a second before he was able to make himself sit up and scan the floor of the room for his pants. They were strewn off to his side of the bed. Adam leaned out at a precarious angle to fish them over by a cuff.

Once he’d silenced it, Adam flicked through his missed texts and a video from Proko. Adam was about to press play when K's warm body draped a long his back. Adam felt more than heard Kavinsky's tongue lick along the shell of his ear.

He suppressed a shiver. 

“We have to be at school in an hour,” Adam reminded him.

“I should have known you would set your alarm a whole hour early,” K mumbled in Adam's neck and then in a more suggestive voice, “So much time. What will we do?”

“I don’t know about you, but I want a shower,” Adam said turning his head back to face K. “I need to have breakfast. And we gotta get there.”

“We can take a shower,” K grinned. “Still that’s more than enough time to get you off again.”

“As tempting as that offer might be...I don't think so,” Adam said. He’d had sex with one of his best friends twice last night and the memory—especially of the second more leisurely fuck set the nerves deep within him alight, in a flush of anticipation. Arousal. He could feel K's interest along his back. His own hard-on had been there for a while, since he woke up and—finally his brain caught on K’s words. “What do you mean ‘we?’”

“Multitask,” K said in a tone that was entirely too suggestive for his actual word choice. “I thought smart boys like you had that on lock.”

“Your mother’s self-help books will say smart boys do the opposite of what you mean, Joseph,” Adam said, turning his face away to hide his smile.

“Oh,” K sighed against Adam’s neck. “Now you're definitely going to have to let me get you off.”

“Is that so?”

“Oh yeah, gonna make you pay dearly.”

“For what?” Adam asked. He turned fully. There something in K’s expression had shifted and Adam wondered if he had misjudged this. “Saying your name?”

Kavinsky didn’t say anything.

“You seemed to like it last night,” Adam observed. He leaned in and gave K a chaste kiss, before pulling back slowly and meeting K's eyes. 

“Pretty sure that was more of a response to what you were doing with your dick than anything else.”

“Nah,” Adam said.

K's mouth formed this funny lopsided line.

“If you don’t like it, just tell me,” Adam said. He wondered if the morning light had made K change his mind or if, perhaps, Adam using K’s given name was suddenly too...intimate? But that didn’t make sense. K was the one who first wanted them to start being _together_ together.

“Hmm,” K said non-committaly closing his eyes, shoulders shrugging. Adam saw his lips crook slightly up.

Adam slid his hand to the base of K's head, fingers threading in his hair, tilting his head back to give Adam better access to K's jaw. He worked along, planting soft not entirely chaste kisses every inch till he got to his ear. Adam waited, but when it was clear K wasn’t going to say anything against it.

“Joseph,” Adam said again into his ear. 

Kavinsky abruptly turned his head and caught Adam’s lips in a kiss. Deep and voluptuous, whatever awkward hesitance that had been there moments before hidden away; K’s hand was on Adam’s neck, cupping the base of his head, pulling him closer. The muscles in K’s abdomen jumped as Adam traced his fingers down, down, down till he could line up their dicks. Despite his own sense of urgency, Adam started working them over slowly. He wanted K to give in to that muddy pleasure he’d been so free with Adam last night.

“Joseph,” Adam said against his lips.

This was an angle he was familiar with now, his own dick in the mix, but Adam was sure to have his thumb brush over K’s slit on the downstroke. 

Kavinsky groaned, forehead pressing into Adam’s. His eyes squeezed shut. Something boiled in him.

It didn't take long. Maybe a minute and half more of stroking, with K's name, said in the same coaxing manner, till he whispered, “Come for me, Joseph.”

He did, arcing off the bed and into Adam’s hand. Adam himself followed shortly after, largely to do with the fact that he had brought K off— _he_ had gotten Kavinsky off.

Kavinsky rolled out next to him on the bed. K’s eyes were closed, features slack but lips still curved in pleasure. Adam could stare at him like that all day. _Too bad they didn’t have all day._

“Shower,” Adam said, patting K’s thigh. “C’mon.”

Kavinsky rolled back over—essentially on top of Adam—bringing their faces were very close.

“Hey,” K said staring down at him, a small genuine smile stretching across his face before he bit his lip.

“Hey,” Adam returned. 

K pressed a kiss to Adam’s smiling lips.

 

 

 

 

 

Adam and K drove to Aglionby, high on this new iteration of the bright thing between them.

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday morning meant Latin, but Adam’s attention was no where near the lesson, which seemed to drag on and on. He just wanted it to be time for chemistry. When the bell finally rung, Adam already had most of his things in his bag and he was out of his seat.

“Adam,” Gansey called. “Can we talk?”

“Yeah, alright,” Adam said, edging toward the door. “Maybe uh, later?” he asked, stepping out into the hall, just to the left of the door, looking at all the passing faces.

Gansey, who had followed him, did not immediately answer. Adam turned back after watching the bustle for several more seconds.

“Don’t you have work and other ... _stuff_ later?” Gansey asked. The emphasis he placed on ‘stuff’ delineating it as a euphemism did not make it sound any less awkward coming from Gansey.

“Yeah,” Adam agreed. He had work that afternoon. “But how long will this take?”

Gansey pursed his lips. “Not long. Which is why I asked you now.”

“...What _was_ the question?” Adam asked, eyes fastening on Gansey for a long moment.

“I wanted to check that you were good with a nine am meeting time for this Sunday?” Gansey asked. 

_That was all?_ Adam glanced back down the hall. Something loosened in his chest when his eyes finally alighted on K coming towards him. Adam said, “Fine with me.”

“Hey, babe,” K said, before throwing an arm around Adam’s shoulders. His grin was enormous, roguish, and most of all infectious. Adam bit down on a smile of his own and took K in. He had pushed his shades into his hair and the bags under his eyes looked moderately less severe than Adam had seen them lately. 

He looked _good_. Adam could kiss him.

“Hey,” Adam returned, leaning into Kavinsky slightly and resisting the urge to take the hand hanging off his shoulder in his own. It was from nothing but a selfish sense of self-preservation that he and K had agreed without really talking about it that they would tell the pack first. Otherwise Swan would kill them and the others would just eat popcorn and watch. 

Gansey made a slight clearing of his throat. Adam turned back to him. K also turned, looking at Gansey for the first time. 

“Oh hello, Dick,” K greeted with a malignant conviviality. 

“Kavinsky,” Gansey acknowledged with a nod.

There was an awkward beat of silence, then K asked, “Ivy, you want to get going to chem?”

Adam was about to agree when Gansey spoke first.

“Since we’re going to the same place,” Gansey said, mostly addressing Adam. “Perhaps we could continue this conversation en route?”

Adam wasn’t sure this was, as Gansey said, a conversation. But he made an acquiescent shrug, which was somewhat muddled by K’s arm around him. 

Adam was surprised to catch sight of Ronan following them even though he had heard from Gansey that Ronan’s next class was over in the collection of small art buildings that were nearest to the main hall, where Latin was held. 

“I would want us to start earlier,” Gansey said, continuing on about Sunday. “But Mallory—”

“Mallory’s coming too?” Adam asked.

Gansey nodded.

“Who’s Mallory?” K stage whispered.

“Gansey’s ley line expert friend, visiting from England,” Adam summed up. 

K swung his head round to fix his eyes on Gansey, “Man, you are such a cliché.”

“If he’s coming, you need to take the Suburban,” Adam said to Gansey. “We don’t know what we’re gonna find down there, but you can bet me, Blue, and Ronan aren’t gonna want to cram ourselves in and out of the back of the pig.”

Gansey’s mouth twisted unhappily, but he didn’t object.

“Ask the G-man what he’s got planned for lunch,” K said.

“Mallory isn’t gonna want to eat Dittley’s Spaghettios,” Adam pointed out to Gansey.

“I’ll pick up some sandwiches Saturday night,” Gansey shrugged, annoyed by what the realities of an all day expedition meant for the facts of human bodies. 

“Oh, another thing,” Adam said, letting K open the door to Brixton House. “Did you happen to notice if the Dittely cave was inside the bounds of Cabeswater?” 

“I don’t believe so,” Gansey said following them into the cool building. Brixton, in the name of science, was one of the only old buildings on campus that had been fully renovated to include temperature control. “Do you think that will be a problem?”

“...Well, we won’t be able to ask the forest for help if something goes wrong,” Adam allowed. “Really, I was just curious if we were going to have to listen to Ronan sing in Gaelic for another three hours plus.”

Kavinsky stumbled; actually, he erupted into fantastical gasping wheezes—that Adam was all too certain were genuine. Adam threw his arm over K’s shoulders in support as he continued to stumble forward and laughing so hard he wasn’t making any noise. K dropped his own arm to Adam’s waist, so that when he ceased convulsing and rose to his full height, Adam was able to pull him slightly closer, unimpeded; which he did.

“I don’t think that will be necessary.”

The four of them walked the rest of the hall in silence. When Adam and K reached their classroom door, they stopped and turned so Adam could finish with Gansey. If Gansey’s expression was dour, then Ronan was giving the two of them the nastiest stink eye. 

Gansey, as if sensing how near to combustion Ronan was, diplomatically ended the conversation by telling Adam that he would text him if there were any changes in their plans. 

 

 

 

 

 

“You’re really going through with another cave day?” Kavinsky asked. “Gansey can get that sleeping king to suck his dick by himself.”

“Don’t start,” Adam said pulling out his chem text and corresponding notebook. “I’d only ask you to light it up as a last resort.”

“Fine,” K sighed. “But really, it’s not like you’re properly equipped or trained—”

“No one got hurt last time.”

“Physically,” K threw back, then he reclined his chair, looking past Adam through the open door where Gansey still stood talking with Ronan. “I actually have to hand it to D3. Going back in takes guts.”

Adam turned to him, expression one of feigned shock, “Was that you giving Gansey a compliment?”

K scoffed and let his chair drop back to all four legs with a thump.

 

 

 

 

 

Adam looked at his wrist watch under the light of the parking lot lamp post. 

Eleven thirty pm. 

That wasn’t _too_ late. He was caught up enough on his reading and homework—where he wanted to be at least. He could make it over to K’s by midnight and then Adam would probably just fall asleep straight off. If that was his plan, why even go to K’s at all? 

Adam knew why, but at the same time he was _so_ tired. 

It wasn't even that Adam had the self discipline, more that he was too exhausted to make it worth the effort. K wouldn’t care if he just wanted to sleep. But if Adam stopped and grabbed his things for Friday at St. Agnes and then went to K's; they would, regardless of Adam’s intentions, want to talk and kiss and he would be awake another hour and a half at least. It didn’t seem like a lot, but Adam had the hard earned knowledge _that_ amount of time made a difference. Even still he was tempted. He couldn’t though. He had work after school tomorrow.

Adam could power through exhaustion, but not without it taking its toll. He didn't want to arrive at a moment of genuinely free time with K for it only to be squandered by passing out. 

So Adam drove back to St. Agnes. He texted K not to expect him, because he was just going to collapse in his bed in approximately five minutes.

In bed before ten. Adam could just hear Proko saying that was around what time his grandparents turned in, calling Adam 'an old fogey,' and then smiling at him, all fondness. 

K texted him back as he was turning off the light in the bathroom, having just finished up his nightly rituals. He climbed into bed reading the message.

_well u know what seph says_  
_sleep is brain food_

_i can’t argue with her_  
_are you gonna feed your brain soon?_

_uhh maybe_  
_hey_  
_full disclosure_  
_i talked with your forest_

_why?_

_i’m gonna dream you something and i wanted to get its clear on the dock_

That brought Adam up short. He actually sat up in bed, propping him self against the wall.

_you made that deal with me_

_yes i know_  
_i do know that ivy_  
_but even the forrest is fine with what i’m gonna pull out_

Cabeswater and Kavinsky _were_ getting on better, it was true. But the forrest still didn’t like that Kavinsky took dreams out. What would Cabeswater be fine with K pulling out?

_it’s not Sunday_ , Adam pointed out, stalling. 

_i know but you’re going spelunking ON sun and you need this BEFORE then_

Whatever this mystery dream object was it was something to help them in the cave. This explained a little bit; not only that K willingly communicated with Cabeswater, but that he got it to agree with him on something and that something was to pull a dream thing out no less, made somewhat more sense that it was all to benefit Adam and the others. But apparently Adam had taken too long, because K sent another message.

_go check with the forest if you think i’m lying_

Adam did not think K was lying, 

_it’s not that._  
_i’m coming over_

_no you sleep_  
_i won’t do it till tomorrow afternoon anyway_

_so when i’m at work_

_hey i’m only gonna have one shot at her_  
_i’ve been thinking about this for a while_  
_i’m not gonna waste it_

_Her?_ What was Kavinsky dreaming? Adam didn't particularly want to think about K and Cabeswater interacting without him as mediator, even though Kavinsky did it every Sunday, but if K thought his dream would be worth all the trouble Adam could imagine K had taken to get the forest to understand—Adam could hardly say no. Adam’s role as line drainage enforcer was purely for Cabeswater’s benefit anyway. If even the forest agreed with K’s judgement...

_i really think she’ll be worth it_

_i’m looking forward to meeting her i guess_

_yesssssssss ivy_

Then K sent a kissy face emoji. Adam snorted, his lips tugging up in spite of himself. He’d pulled up his own selection of emojis when he received another text.

_one more thing can you whistle?_

 

 

 

 

 

It was a short shift and that was the only reason Adam was able to make it. 

Adam’s psychic connection to the forest was stronger than ever and the shudders that went through it, also went through Adam. He didn’t _think_ he would disappear too if the line were drained, but the possibility that he _might_ was just another reason for putting a cap on K’s dreaming. Adam certainly didn’t want to find out. 

Four hours directly after school wasn’t too bad. He could suffer them, even when he felt K’s dream take a significant drain on the line. K had texted him, before he had slipped into the dream world. It had been a long time since he’d pulled something that intricate out and Adam was glad he was on his back examining the chassis of a car when it happened, because his vision blackened and air disappeared from his lungs. It passed after a couple of minutes, and he went back to work without anyone seeming to notice. 

For K to have gotten clearance to pull out something with _that_ big a drain....Adam’s curiosity was going to eat him alive. His shift could not be over quick enough and he was glad that Boyd didn’t insist he stay till the car he was working on was done. 

 

 

 

 

 

“Don't get mad,” Swan said, when Adam came into the kitchen. Adam could hear exuberant shouts coming in through the open screen of the sliding door out to the deck and beyond in the yard below. Adam turned back to Swan.

Swan was remarkably salt of the earth. Admittedly, Adam didn’t know many theater kids, but he had the idea they were over-dramatic in all aspects of life. Swan, of course, proved him wrong as he wasn't often given over to hyperbole. 

So this sudden, melodramatic build-up indicated something was definitely out of the ordinary. For the twenty-billionth time, Adam wondered exactly what K had dreamt?

“Contrary to popular belief saying that doesn't actually stop people from getting mad,” Adam pointed out. “Especially before they even know what's wrong.”

“K took something out,” Swan said, with no small amount of tact. That was how they talked about K’s forgeries now—when they talked about them that was. They were circumspect, knowing _something_ was up with K’s more creative dreams. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to put together Adam’s arrival and K’s sudden concern with conservation. Even Skov, who had taken a bit longer to catch on, treaded delicately.

“He told me he would,” Adam said. Swan nodded like he had expected as much, but his expression didn’t lighten. It was so clear Adam didn’t know _what_. “Dare I ask?”

Swan hesitated, for a moment looking like he would tell Adam but then, “You better just come and see.”

Adam didn’t know what to expect as they stepped out.

Skov and Noah were leaning on the rail of the deck engrossed in watching the hijinks below. Adam leaned over the railing to get a good look himself. 

There was K—who, Adam couldn’t help but notice, looked good in a white tank and a pair of maroon joggers. A few paces away were Proko and Jiang, who of course had donned his ginormous shades and a snapback in protest of direct sunlight. He didn’t see what Swan needed to show him in order to explain. He didn’t see K’s dream. Then Proko took one of the bright yellow tennis balls he had in a mesh sack at his feet and pitched it hard Adam caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned in time to see a bolt of black fur dart across the lawn. It was fast and went after the tennis ball with relish, though it clearly didn’t know how to play the game because instead of fetching the ball, the dream _ate_ it.

Adam thought what could have been a small dog or a big cat padded its way back to the others—except for comically large features, huge pointed ears, and tail nearly a yard long—but either way tennis balls couldn’t be good for its digestive system. 

“What is it?” Adam shouted down to K. 

“A void creature!”

“It looks like a Pokémon.” Adam only had a passing acquaintance with Pokémon, but it looked liked one if he had ever seen a drawing.

Proko burst out laughing and Jiang doubled over beside him.

“He's got your number, K!" Skov called, and then in a more conversational tone to Adam said: "We were watching _The First Movie_ last night.”

“Come on down here, Ivy, and meet her,” K called, ignoring the hyenea-like laughing noises coming from Prokopenko and crouching down to stroke the creature. 

Adam went down the deck steps, eyes never once leaving K’s latest dream. The creature might have been able to be passed off as a cat. Everything about her was soft and curving, save the tips of her large ears and her alarming teeth, all cat-like. Just a really big cat. Perhaps it was only that Adam was looking for unnatural features, but a tail longer than her whole body and amber eyes were sure bound to arouse suspicion in anyone’s mind. Adam didn’t think that many people would believe him when he told them she was just some exotic breed. 

“I don’t know why you couldn’t have dreamed up a dog or a ...crocodile. Anything that wouldn't get her shot and us ...arrested,” Adam settled on.

“Arrested for what? Hmm, arrested for what?” K said in an affected voice more to the bundle of black fur that he was still hunched next to than to Adam. “Having the most adorable pet?”

“People talk, K,” Adam said. 

“Yes, they do,” K said, the void creature deigned this child-speak graciously and only licked at K’s nose. “But if one of them tries something you know what you'll do, don't you? You know what to do! Show him, babe! Go on!”

K stood up and made a little gesture which set the creature off at a lopping run to the other side of the yard, at which point the void creature quite literally ate an ugly bush. 

Adam stared. 

The scraggly boxwood had definitely been there moments before and frankly there was no where else the plant _could_ have gone but _into_ the creature. However, the void creature, true to her name, did not expand in some odd bush like shape. She remained a petite, if slightly rotund cat shape and even jumped around as if invigorated.

To say Adam was disturbed by her agility after such a meal would have been an understatement.

“Didn't think I'd leave her without protection, did you?” K asked.

Adam had seen her jaw unhinge and in the space of a blink the bush was gone. Even watching this, logically, there was no way her large mouth was big enough to fit around a bush. _Dream magic_. Finally, he said, “I can't believe pulled out a Pokemon.”

K made a click-click noise with the side of his mouth, like he was calling a dog, and the Pokemon—ehm, void creature came bouncing over. He crouched down, rubbing her belly and speaking softly in Bulgarian into one of her big pointy ears. Adam only had time to hear Poison Ivy, before the creature was bounding towards him. She stopped at his feet and looked up at him with huge beseeching eyes, demanding that Adam hold her. 

Adam reluctantly held open his arms, bending his knees slightly, so the creature could hop up into them. 

She was light, that was the first thing that came to his mind. As he had watched the shrub-eating creature bound toward him, Adam had estimated she would weigh at least fifteen pounds—plus she had just swallowed an entire plant. He had braced himself for that weight, but she couldn’t have been more than five or six pounds at the most. 

He registered both her features and her fur at approximately the same time. 

She was soft. Her black fur, honestly, fluffy. She had an oddly flat face with huge amber eyes, which were flecked with yellow and full of an intelligence. Understanding. It was like she recognized Adam. Like she knew him and thought he’d hung the moon. Or given her a bush to swallow. Whole. Which brought him to look at her dangerous, vampiric incisors.

He glanced up at her happy kind eyes and then opened his mouth in a kind of showy way. The void creature opened hers and Adam looked inside. 

There were her teeth and her gums. Her tongue and where the walls of her throat should be...nothing.

His brow furrowed. Adam glanced up at K and back at the void creature. She still had her mouth open. Her saliva did not smell of wood. In fact it didn’t smell like anything at all. Adam leaned closer, straining to see into the darkness. But there was just blackness. The kind that implied depth and endless dimension even though ostensibly it was flat. 

It would be sheer stupidity to stick his hand in her mouth after the display he just saw, but the name _void creature_....when he stuck a pointer finger in, she opened her mouth wider. Adam took that as an invitation. 

“Man, you don’t want to do that!” Skov shouted down at him, but K wasn’t stopping him.

Adam didn’t take his eyes off of the void creature’s as he put the rest of his hand in her mouth, past her scary teeth. He figured since he’d just seen her jaw essentially unhinge; it was unlikely that she had a gag reflex that would trigger the bush to be vomited back at him. 

He felt an odd pull at the tips of his fingers when he thought he was where the back of her throat _should_ have been. Adam reached a hesitant centimeter further and that pull was stronger. Adam yanked his hand out. 

She blinked her large yellow eyes at Adam somnolently as if to say ‘what were you expecting?’

There had been a distinct shift in gravity at the back of her throat. A _void creature_. She literally had a black hole _inside_ her.

Adam stared down at the creature he had in his arms, trying to wrap his mind around her. The void creature tolerated this staring match for a good minute, but she had already made her decision about Adam and demonstrated this with, indeed, the most adorable display of affection Adam had ever seen. She braced her paws on his chest and started giving him eskimo kisses. Amazing. He scratched the back of her head lightly and stared over at K instead, who had been watching this exchange with rapt, nervous attention.

It must have been all over Adam’s face.

Kavinsky’s own expression was simultaneously pleased with himself and relieved. It was clear he’d been worried if Adam would like her—because that was the only variable in this scenario; whether _Adam_ would like her, because the creature already loved him. 

Adam's gut was humming a swarm of happy butterflies. Just looking at K when he was like this did that to him.

“What’s her name?”

“I dreamt her _for_ you,” K said. In his eyes there was an echo of the way the void creature looked at Adam. “She doesn’t have a name yet.”

Adam, who was already smiling, didn’t do anything to stop the full-blown grin from spreading over his face. 

“What do you want to call her, Poison Ivy?”

They were separated by several feet of carefully manicured grass, but Adam didn't hesitate in closing the distance when he was struck suddenly and vehemently with the urge to kiss K. This was as good a time to tell the others as any and Adam really needed to kiss K, like really. It was kind of stupid. K didn’t hesitate in kissing him back or wrapping an arm around the side of Adam's waist that wasn’t occupied by the void creature, and pulled him close.

Cat calls and a smattering of applause went up when the rest of the pack and Adam felt his cheeks go hot when he and K broke a part.

“Oh hohohoho,” Skov said turning to Jiang. “You better pay up, my buddy.”

“You took bets on whether or not we’d get together.”

“Not if,” Skov protested. “ _When_!”

“You bet when? Thanksgiving?”

“Over thanksgiving, yeah.”

“Too long,” Proko said. “I would have said halloween at the _latest_.”

“Do you have any idea what you might want to call her?” K asked Adam as the other’s continued on in this vein, hooking his chin on Adam’s shoulder. “Need some time to think?”

“No,” Adam said, looking into the void creature’s eyes. he knew what he wanted to call her. “Merriell. I want to name her after my grandmother.”

After they had learned of her death, he had mourned _his_ loss of her more than the loss of Merriell herself. That spring he had been mourning the boy he could be when he was with her, away from his father. He had only been a kid and the younger Adam hadn’t understood the difference, but he hadn’t been grieving for Merriell. Adam didn’t know if he would ever be able to forgive himself for that. 

Of course, he knew Merriell would have. He could hear her voice in his head, had heard her say this exact thing more times than he could count, “Ah, baby, you gotta be patient with yourself.” 

So many things she had said to him had faded. He had almost forgotten her voice; except for some aphorisms she had told him enough and from such a young age that they were permanently etched in her cadence. That one was the clearest.

_You gotta be patient with yourself._

How many times had she told him that and Adam had looked down at the mess he made or the project he couldn’t _get_ , but should and protest. She would only shake her head, and continue, “Nobody’s perfect. You gotta have compassion for others _and_ yourself. We’re all growing.” He could almost hear her now. 

For years, he’d avoided thinking of her because she had been too painful to remember. He’d dismiss some of his best memories. But she’d been such an important part of his life; had given him more than he realized at the time and he’d thought she’d hung the moon back then. Merriell had taught him so many things that his parents failed to. 

He felt a debt toward her, even if she was dead. 

If the week he’d got the shitbox from Helen hadn’t been so hectic and he hadn’t immediately gotten ensnared in this deal with K, Adam would have driven up to the town where Merriell had lived all her life and where she had been buried by her neighbors. He would have finally after all these years paid his respects and said goodbye. Even that wouldn’t have been enough. She had been the only good thing in his life for so long. She had given him love unconditionally and he—

Looking into the void creature’s eyes he’d been struck by the kindness he saw there; love, which was the very echo of his grandmother—sans the yellow eyes, her’s had been hazel—that no other name even came into his mind. He couldn’t explain the debt he felt but he knew Merriell had given him so much of the good in himself and he was going to try and repay that by treating this creature right.

“Merriell,” K repeated looking at his dream. He had on a quiet smile and as if in agreement the void creature’s long tail twisted up and began to wrap around Adam’s neck like a scarf.

“Oh my god!” Noah said in delight.

“K...” Adam said, dubious of this development.

Kavinsky bit down on a grin. “Think that’s her way of saying she likes you.”

“Ivy, don’t move! I need to get a picture!” Jiang shouted.

“Did you base her off a cat or a lemur?” Adam asked K as Jiang pulled out his phone.

“Thought you said she was a Pokemon?”

 

 

 

 

 

“You do realize he's going into a _cave_ right?” Jiang asked, later when they were all sitting in the basement. 

“Yeah,” K said turned to Jiang, eyebrow raised. They were sitting on the couch. K had his arm around Adam’s shoulders and Merriell’s head was in his lap. It was easy. Adam couldn’t believe how easy it was. 

“So why didn't you make him that bat Pokemon. The one with the—” he broke off, frowning and making a flicking hand gesture; fingers going from a loose fist to shooting out repeatedly, like he was casting something away. “What’s the word for that sonar thing bats do?”

“...Echolocation,” Adam said. 

“Ah! Yes, that!” Jiang exclaimed with a snap of fingers. “Can she do that?”

“Nope,” K said mildly, but he looked rather put out. 

“She has other tricks,” Adam said, stroking through Merriell’s fur. 

“You don’t know the half of it,” K said. “Besides, it’s too late to return her to the void now. Ivy’s named her.”

Adam was still petting her, when he felt a low vibration start up against his leg. He looked down at Merriell, who’s huge eyes were closed, but her wide mouth seemed to be curved up. 

“ _K_ ,” Adam said, delighted. “She’s purring!”

Merriell wasn’t going anywhere, Adam would make sure of it.

 

 

 

 

 

“I love your couch,” Adam said sometime later. “But I want to sleep in a real bed.”

“You gotta get up there first,” K observed.

Adam groaned.

“I could try to carry you,” K offered.

Adam frowned at him, but before he could respond to _that_ , Skov cut in.

“Oh my god,” Skov groaned. “Just say you're gonna go have sex.”

“I appreciate the euphemism,” Swan said from his book.

“Hey, hey, he was at work all afternoon,” K said. “Ivy needs to sleep in a real bed.”

“Uh-huh,” Skov said.

“I really was just thinking about sleep,” Adam asserted. 

“People in hell want ice water. You're getting ice water and uh, virgin piña colada, for you. Now that you're awake take both.”

Everyone seemed to need a moment to parse this bizarre metaphor. Everyone but Noah that was, because he almost immediately objected, “I wouldn’t say virgin.” 

Skov turned to him, blinking, delighted, and said, “I love you,” before he pushed Noah down on the couch to kiss him. This was somewhat hampered at first by Noah’s giggles. Those didn’t last long though. 

“Maybe it’s you two who should go to bed,” Jiang said sourly. He had been roped into playing a few rounds of backgammon with Proko and definitely did not want to be audience to some light dry humping.

 

 

 

 

 

Merriell bounded up the stairs.

Adam and K followed behind at a more sedate pace and when they entered K’s room she was already there up on her hind legs, front paws on the glass watching the dragon eel with rapt fascination. Her mouth open in awe or, Adam worried, in hunger.

K sat down on the side of his bed.

“She’s certainly enthralled. Make a friend?” Adam asked, but the creature didn’t even look at him. Adam settled next to K.

“I wanted to make sure she wasn't going to go fishing,” K sounded a bit sheepish, but proud all the same. “Might've overdone it a bit.”

“Tell me about it?” Adam asked.

K shrugged. “I have never been in the forest that long with out the night terrors coming. Fuck, even back in Jersey that would have been a stretch. You noticed right? How long I was dreaming?”

Adam had. Save when K went into the dreamworld to help him strengthen the line, he was in and out. He never lingered. Never was more than five minutes. When Adam got K’s text earlier during his shift, he’d been expecting K to go in, maybe take ten minutes or so, and then pull the thing out. So when over a half hour passed and K still hadn’t pulled anything out, Adam was understandably nervous. He'd poked at Cabeswater, asking if Kavinsky was alright. The forest had not been happy about it, but had attempted to reassure him by riffling through Adam’s memories. Ronan’s demands to keep Gansey and the other’s safe, Adam’s amazement at K’s dream fish the first time he saw them, and a few of him and K laughing in the basement with the others or at a late night shake stop that had the same sheen Adam allowed all of his dreams of the future to take on. 

Today really hadn’t been his most productive on the clock. 

“But I wasn’t stealing her. I had to make sure she was just right before I pulled her out. There was a lot of troubleshooting. _In the dream_. The whole time I was worried the nightmares would come—like I nearly bit through my lip I was so—” K sighed. “But Cabeswater was good to its word.”

Adam had a difficult time believing it as well.

“When I opened my eyes back here, she was just sitting on my chest, looking up at me with those huge yellow eyes. I knew I had done right.”

Adam smiled. 

“I set her down and when she took her first shaky steps—” K broke off to grin. “She was so cute. Trying to find her legs. I mean she had them fine in the dream, but reality is always a little different. Her head darting around like she couldn't decide what to look at first. Then she saw the tank,” K let out a laugh. “She bounded right over to them. Same slack-jaw wonder...”

Adam could almost imagine the look on K's face as Merriell’s huge eyes took in the world around her for the first time and he was struck with a sadness that he hadn't been there to see it all too. Merriell’s first steps. Her first glaze-eyed awe at the dream fish. Even K waking up with her in his arms. Adam didn’t say anything.

“What's up, Ivy?” K asked at his somber silence.

“It’s nothing,” Adam sighed. Normally this was the kind of thing he kept to himself, but K _had_ asked and they were together now. Wasn’t this the type of thing you told your partner? “I’m just kinda disappointed I missed all that.”

Kavinsky drew back slightly, looking at Adam and rethinking this afternoon from Adam’s perspective. Abruptly, K sat forward, elbows braced on knees and his fingers steepled in front of his mouth. “I didn’t...” K stopped, looking discontentedly over at the void creature. “I didn't think...”

“It’s fine,” Adam said. Because it _was_ fine. They had her after all. And Merriell was astounding. How had K been able to hold her personality, standard physiological movements, and her fantastical abilities all at once and pull out _Merriell_ on the first try? It was astounding in itself, but even more so because that went so against K's typical creative process of trial and error. Adam knew their deal threw a wrench in that. Obviously, K didn't care about leaving a drained line for Cabeswater, but pulling out 20 void creatures to get the perfect twenty-first fell under the waste category. Merriell had taken quite a dent by herself, but she was worth it.

“No...”

“You said you only have one shot at her,” Adam said, turning back to him. Now K looked sad and Adam didn't want that. Really he did get it. K had just been thinking about getting her right the first and only time. “You didn't need me to distract you.”

“I could have done it,” K said still frowning. “You should have been there. I—” He cut himself off with this weird blinking shake of the head.

“It doesn't matter, Joseph,” Adam said, trying to catch his eye. “She’s wonderful.”

K glanced at him. 

“And I think,” Adam said, pushing Kavinsky onto his back and climbing over him. “I outta show you just how proud of you I am.”

K’s grin was so warm Adam couldn’t not kiss him.

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday Adam had some work he needed to do for the line. He’d been putting it off. Small wonder why after last time, but even with Kavinsky’s promise to be there whenever he needed to go back in, Adam was hesitant. He had little doubt K would be able to pull him out. 

It wasn’t that. 

He just never wanted to be in that room ever again. And this would be the first time since the ominous red door that Adam had scried with only K to watch over him. When he scried with Persephone last Friday, she had small exercises for him to do, but she was always right there directing him.

It was just the five of them when they trundled out to a remote portion of Cabeswater; since Jiang had a client scheduled that afternoon and Swan was otherwise engaged with drama club. K drove them over forty-five minutes down an access road in order to get Adam within _walking_ distance of where he needed to be to fix the break. 

Merriell was by far the most enthusiastic of all of them. Nearly the whole car ride out there, she had sat on Proko’s lap in the back seat and held staring contests with Skov and then Noah, beating them both. But once they started walking she was off, running over to sniff this flower or look at that tree, coming back to them running under Noah and Skov’s clasped hands, circling K’s legs and then Adam’s before prancing further ahead, curiosity un-sated.

When they reached the break, Proko sat down on an uncomfortable looking rock and continued texting. He had been in the midst of some long and engrossing text conversation since before they had even left K’s. Noah and Skov spent the time it took for Adam to set up to gather wildflowers. K caught up Adam’s hand briefly to give it a reassuring squeeze as Adam set up his scrying bowl. But he’d been worried for nothing. Scrying for a fix that was right in front of them hardly required Adam to go in all that deep and he wasn’t pulled into any creepy caves with murder doors. 

On the drive home, Noah had made a flower crown for Skov and Adam. While Skov had, after making a flower crown for Noah, then started one for the void creature.

“I crown you,” Skov said dramatically as he lowered the flower crown onto the void creature’s head on K’s front lawn after they had all spilled out of the evo, “Merriell, Queen of the Shadows!”

When Skov posted a black and white edit of Adam holding Merriell, both of them with matching crowns, on Insta, he got a rather snide comment from Jiang telling them all that he was glad he wasn’t there to spoil all their flower fun with his allergies. K said he should just be glad that he dreamed Merriell’s fur to be hypoallergenic. 

Swan said they needed to print the photo out and frame it.

 

 

 

 

 

It was a grey, drizzly morning when Adam and Merriell left K’s house with only a sleepy kiss and a banana. 

Merriell rode in the passenger seat, her front paws on the glass of the window as she stared out at the passing scenery, huge eyes completely rapt. Adam supposed her little void creature prints would be the price he had to pay for her adorableness. 

When they parked in the Monmouth lot, she bounced around on the asphalt, happy to be somewhere new and with Adam. Not squeamish about the light misting of water falling from the sky in the slightest. 

“What is that?” Gansey asked, once he finished placing the cooler in the trunk of the Suburban. He was wearing a navy rain jacket and Blue, who was huddled under the back door, had on a huge nappy sweater. They were both staring at Merriell. Adam pulled on his hood. 

“Merriell!” he called, holding out his arms for her to jump into, before he closed the distance to Gansey and Blue.

“This is Merriell,” Adam said. “She's a void creature.”

“A what?” Gansey repeated.

“A creature from the void,” Adam said, knowing all too well that did not explain her any better. 

Gansey watched Merriell’s long black tail wind its way around Adam’s neck like a scarf.

“A...little ostentatious,” Gansey said. “Even for Kavinsky.”

This comment made little sense to Adam, given K’s reputation for seamless forgeries. Especially in the face of Ronan’s monstrous night-terrors. “Don’t insult her or she might eat you.”

Gansey let out a weird little snort. 

“I’m not kidding,” Adam said, scratching behind Merriell’s ear. “The first time I saw her she swallowed a whole bush twice her size and didn't get any bigger for it. Would you like a demonstration?” he asked them, but he was looking at Merriell, who gave Adam an eskimo kiss in response. 

Gansey looked concerned and shook his head, declining the offer.

“She kinda looks like a cross between a red panda and a lemur,” Blue said. Adam could see it. Merriell had the stockiness of a red panda and a lemur’s huge eyes and tail that was longer than its body. Blue held out her hand tentatively so the void creature could sniff it.

Merriell did, but abruptly jerked back, turning up her nose haughtily. 

Blue’s face fell. 

“She just doesn’t know you yet,” Adam tried. But something suspicious had already crept into Blue’s eyes and Adam bet whatever she was thinking wasn’t as far off from the truth as Adam would have liked. 

The front door of Monmouth slammed open and the four of them turned to look.

“That’s not a cat,” Ronan observed what Adam was holding.

“It’s a void creature, apparently,” Gansey said, still watching Merriell with obvious apprehension. 

Ronan raised an eyebrow and Chainsaw cocked her head. “What—”

It was at that exact moment that Merriell burst from Adam’s arms and, like a shot from a cannon, raced across the lot. She bounded her way _up_ Ronan and was on his shoulder before—

“Shit,” Adam said in realization, but it was already too late to do anything. 

“Kyrah!” Chainsaw squawked, before having the sense to take off, but Merriell was fast and jumped after the bird, teeth coming together with an ominous snap on one of the black feathers. 

“What the fuck!” Ronan shouted.

The bird got away and Merriell landed primly on her feet, whipping her tail at Ronan with a loud thwack-thwack. Ronan stared after Merriell as she prowled in a lazy figure eight, huge eyes watching the raven flapping around in distressed circles. 

“Adam,” Blue started sounding concerned. 

“Yeah,” Adam said, tiredly. “Give me a minute.”

Adam whistled like K had Friday afternoon and Merriell came to him. He scooped her up, but held her so that he could look into her eyes. 

“Don’t do that again.”

Merriell cocked her head to one side. 

“We don’t eat other people’s pets.”

She made a contrary noise.

“No, we don’t. Chainsaw was not threatening me with bodily harm.”

Adam wondered if he was imagining the ‘that you know of’ look that had come into her eyes. 

“I’m serious. Don’t try that again,” Adam said firmly. Merriell went as if to wrap her tail around him.

“None of that,” Adam said halting her tail’s attempt at twining around him. “Show me you understand.”

She made this sad cat-like noise. The denial of what Adam was beginning to think might be her second favorite human-claiming/action-of-endearment right behind the eskimo kisses, clearly had a bigger affect on her disposition than his admonishment.

“If I put you down, you aren’t going to attack Chainsaw again, right?”

She let out another hurt cat noise, which sounded to Adam as if she were rebuking him. 

Adam moved to let her drop from his hold, but instead of squirming from his grasp, she hid her head in his shoulder. She reminded Adam of a scolded child, who couldn’t take the shame of having a beloved parent disappointed in them. He ran a soothing hand from the crown of her head to her shoulder blades.

Ronan stepped over closer to them. Gansey was looking up at the roof of the old factory building, where Chainsaw had perched. Apparently that height had been deemed safe enough from the void creature. Merriell had forgotten the bird and kept her head in the crook of Adam’s neck till the Monmouth door opened again. Her ears twitched at the sound of the Dog. She took her head from its hiding place in Adam’s neck and looked around. Only when she saw the Dog did the spark of excitement come back to her eyes and she started to wriggle in his grasp.

Adam bet she got her mercurial nature from her mother. It was kind of strange to think of K in that context, but in so many senses it was true. He had created her. Essentially birthed her from the dreamplace. If K was Merriell’s mom, he thought letting her spring from his arms, did that make him her dad? The logic didn’t exactly follow because he hadn’t contributed to her creation, but surely he could be her adoptive dad? Something warm spread in his gut and he was smiling by the time Mallory had noticed her coming up to them.

“Who’s this?” he asked as Merriell trotted up to them. 

“Mallory!” Gansey said in warning, but the older man hardly glanced at him as he watched the void creature commence introductions with his service dog. 

“That’s Merriell,” Adam told Mallory in a slightly raised voice.

“Merriell?” Mallory asked her. “How lovely to meet you and what a wonderful name you have...”

It was obvious Merriell was not of this world’s animal kingdom. Gansey asked the salient question: “How is that not a violation of your deal?”

“K owed me.”

“...owed you for what?” Ronan asked.

Adam considered saying that his and K’s personal dealings were none of their business, because he sure as hell wasn’t going to tell _Gansey_ he had gone on one of Joey K’s drug drops with some of the FBIs most wanted, but he decided to go with a more diplomatic version of the truth. “He asked me to rearrange my work schedule last week for a trip out of town. I did.”

“And in return he dreamed _that_?”

“Yep,” Adam said. 

Gansey still looked skeptical that such a trade was on the up and up. “He gave you a ...void creature for rearranging your work schedule?”

“He knows what work means to me,” Adam said, before he could bite his tongue. Then in a tone of self-recrimination, Adam corrected himself, “K’s just worried what we’ll find down there. After last time...”

Gansey made a dubious humming noise and walked over to where Mallory was stroking Merriell. 

“Where’d he get the name ‘Merriell?’’” Ronan asked watching the void creature with a kind of jealous admiration.

“Actually, I named her,” Adam said.

Ronan made a humming grunt of a noise, which was Ronan-speak for 'go on.' But Adam didn’t want to get into why he’d picked _that_ name for her. 

“Are we ready to get going?” Adam asked.

 

 

 

 

 

“Psst,” Ronan gave him a nudge and pointed with his chin.

Adam followed Ronan’s indication down the aisle. Merriell, who’s head had been sticking out of his partially unzipped backpack, her curious eyes eagerly taking in all the bright packaging, turned to look too. They saw a tall pretty blonde woman and two thuggish looking guys. The word ‘henchmen’ came to mind. “What?”

“That’s Greenmantle’s wife,” Ronan explained. “Piper.”

Skov’s sources had been right: she was extremely hot. 

“Have you looked into gutting Greenmantle yet?” Ronan asked.

“....No, I haven't looked into it. I told you I don't have time,” Adam frowned. “What part of that don't you get?”

Ronan hadn't even blinked in his fifty yard stare at Piper.

Adam rolled his eyes, and pulled one of the basic dollar toothbrushes off the peg and tossed it into the cart too. The clatter seemed to startle Ronan out of whatever revenge day-dream scheme he had fallen into.

“Not even a little?”

Adam took a deep breath and then another. He knew that sometimes Ronan pushed at him just so he could have a fight. They'd never thrown punches at each other, but Adam really didn't think Ronan would be adverse to that. It would give him a good excuse to teach Adam to fight, as neither of them really wanted to hurt the other. But sometimes....

Usually Ronan’s gibes didn't matter, because Adam could keep his head enough to leave their fights to a verbal altercation only. But sometimes Adam would wonder if Ronan really knew how close he was pushing him. If he didn't really want to blow some of that excess violence off now that Declan was in DC. If Adam didn't know how much this thing with Greenmantle meant to Ronan, he would think he was just fucking with him now for that exact purpose.

Adam was close to angry now. He reminded himself that getting kicked out of the store would not be good and if the fight was particularly nasty—a fight with Ronan would be—he might get banned. And that would be bad news. 

“Not even a little,” Adam said, turning to him. “I already told you I wasn't going to do it. What do you think I've been doing with my time? I have to apply for colleges. I have to write out my scholarship applications. On top of school. On top of work. I don't think you understand how little time I actually have! I'm not going to go screwing around, trying to come up with some magic black-mail to make sure some murderous asshole gets his comeuppance.”

“You're just gonna let him walk,” Ronan exhaled with the upmost contempt.

“You have some fucking nerve,” Adam hissed, tossing the cheapest toothpaste from the shelf in the cart. “If you're so desperate, if you really don’t think Grey can handle it, why don't you just do it yourself?”

“I'm _asking_ you,” Ronan said.

“And for the last time, I’m telling you ‘no.’”

That ended all conversation and concluded their shopping excursion too. Adam took one last look at all the different personal hygiene products, while Ronan lopped along staring straight ahead and not putting anything _essential_ in the cart. Tentatively Adam grabbed a box of tampons and called it good. 

Ronan’s biggest contribution aside from the dog jokes and a fourteen dollar bottle of shampoo, was sticking a grey-silver credit card with a red rim in the reader without even looking at the total at the check-stand. Adam collected the handles of the plastic bags, so they were ready to go once he’d paid. Merriell made a kind of discontented cat noise and he felt her cold nose on his neck as Ronan waived off the receipt.

“Yeah,” Adam said, feeling nothing but exhaustion. He had already turned toward the sliding doors that pronounced EXIT.

Once they were back in the BMW, Adam said he was tired and if it were all the same to Ronan, Adam would just prefer if he dropped them off at St. Agnes instead of going back to Fox Way with the toiletries. 

Ronan huffed, but silently took the streets that would take them to the church. 

 

 

 

 

 

“Poison Ivy,” K greeted. Adam could hear the smile in his voice. Kavinsky sounded relaxed, but not sleepy despite the late hour. Adam still hadn’t figured out K’s sleep cycle, if he even had one.

“Hey,” Adam said and then let the silence take the line. Hearing K’s breathing on the other end was doing exactly what he’d hoped; calming him slightly. 

Adam had been on the verge of a panic attack. He could feel Cabeswater less than a arm’s length away and knew it was waiting for him to offer up the panic, but he held his barriers close. Adam didn’t want to let this fear go quite yet. He’d been stupid.

This room was quiet, clean, and his. It was also deceptive, because while he didn’t have to hear his father yelling in the other room or be made to feel unwanted every-time he stepped through the door, this room, far from the freedom he’d come to think of it as, felt more like a prison cell at the moment. His father knew _where_ he was and he could _come_ back at any time. Adam had been foolish to think he was safe merely across town with that restraining order. No where was safe. No where in Henrietta, at least.

“You wanna come over?” Kavinsky asked after about a minute and a half of just breathing and Adam over-thinking.

“...I can’t,” Adam said. There was school tomorrow and then work. 

“You want me to come over to your’s then?”

“I think I’m gonna fall asleep.”

“That’s not a ‘no.’”

“I hardly think me sleeping is an entertaining diversion.”

“Let me be the judge of that.”

“Creeper,” Adam said and then, “Was that the lock on your front door?”

“Perceptive.”

Adam didn’t say anything. Faintly he could hear the Mitsu’s tweet as it unlocked and then closer sounds of a car door slammed. 

“Don't fall asleep on me now.”

“I’m just thinking.”

“Of what?”

“How tired I am,” Adam said. Actually, he’d been thinking about how he had less than a year of _this_. Adam was leaving Henrietta once he graduated. But he had to make it through the year first. He had to make it through the court date with his father and he had to end things with Cabeswater...

“Tell me what happened in the cave,” K said. “I'm guessing you didn't find Dick’s king?”

“No, but we found his daughter,” Adam said. “ _Alive_.”

“...Huh,” K said, after a moment. “That’s some fucky shit.”

Adam remembered how many rhymes Gwenllian could spin into a conversation and said, “Tell me about it. She was tied up, placed in a coffin—facedown—underground, in a fake tomb. I’m still not convinced she’s isn’t crazy.”

“Awake in a box for what—a few hundred years—wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Yeah,” Adam sighed.

“Still,” K said. “You found her in a fake tomb? So there was some old timey shit? Won't you be need permits to excavate?

“Gansey won't be telling anyone about her crypt till we find Glendower.”

K let out a snort. “I don’t know much about stumbling upon archeological finds, but something tells me that’s a big no-no.”

“If he did inform the proper authorities about the shill grave, then he’d suddenly be competing with all these other people to find Glendower,” Adam said. “And since getting to him first is the whole point...”

“Well, we already knew Gansey was that kind of arrogant dick,” K said. “What’s a few more months gonna really do to a bunch of old Welsh shit anyway?”

Adam declined to comment. There was logic in both arguments, but Gansey’s way of thinking left Adam with a greater chance of saving his life. 

“Is he going to question the daughter?”

“She doesn’t know where he was buried,” Adam said. “They put her in the ground before him. Though I don’t think she’d tell us even if she did.”

“Too bad. Still, she must be a riot.”

“That’s exactly what she is: a one woman riot.”

“Off to a good start with finding a kooky old-young woman in a tomb. Where’d your day go from there?”

“Ronan still wants to blackmail Greenmantle.”

“Am I supposed to be surprised?” K asked. “Actually I can’t believe he hadn’t just hauled off and tried to beat him up yet.”

“A rare show of restraint.”

“Or just G-Man having a firm grip on Lynch’s leash,” K said. “I bet he gets off on being told ‘no.’”

Adam rubbed a knuckle into his closed eye socket. “I don’t want to discuss Ronan’s kinks.”

“Neither do I, but sometimes you just gotta wonder what goes on in his head,” K said. “So he asked you again?”

“Yeah,” Adam said, around a yawn. “At the store. While we were getting shampoo for the five hundred year old madwoman.”

“Sounds like a good bedtime story. Why don't you save it till I get there? What else?”

“There has to be something else?”

“You're not gonna _call_ me just because you had an argument with Lynch and found a woman who should have been dead five hundred years ago,” K said. “Unless you just missed my sparkling personality?”

The corner of Adam’s mouth curled up. “It might have been that. Partially.”

“Oh boy,” K laughed. “What happened?”

Adam sighed, letting a beat pass, before he admitted, “My dad came by.”

“What did he want?” K asked, sober as Sunday.

“Nothing he's gonna get.”

K hummed darkly but didn’t press. “You should open your door now.”

 

 

 

 

 

“You’re tense,” K said, from the hug he had enveloped Adam in immediately after the door opened. 

Adam breathed him in and let his own hands feel K, his back solid and warm. “You would be too if you had the kind of day I’ve had.”

“Go lie down,” K said, holding him out at arm’s length. 

“K,” Adam sighed. He thought after how many times K told him _not_ to fall asleep, K would have gotten they weren’t having sex tonight. “I’m _tired_.”

“I know. Trust me,” K said. “On your stomach.”

Adam laid down and K climbed over him. His hands found there way onto Adam’s shoulders and then Kavinsky started kneading into him. 

K’s hands on his back...weren’t better than sex, but _god_ , he melting into the sheets.

“Joseph,” Adam definitely did _not_ sob. 

“Shhhh,” K said. “Try to relax.”

Adam could _try_. Never in a million years did he think being with K would mean he would get his own personal masseuse. After several minutes of heavenly bliss, Adam said, “You made Merriell hate Gansey, Blue, and Ronan.”

“Made? I didn’t _make_ her do anything,” 

“ _K_ , you dreamt her.”

“Merriell is a creature of free will and good taste. If she —independently of me— decided that she doesn’t care for...uh, fraternizing with Dick 3 and Lynch then that should be a commendation of her character and not at all—”

“Sounds like bullshit,” Adam cut in. 

K dropped the pretense entirely and leaning down to catch Adam’s eye. He flashed him a wicked smirk and said, “Yeah, well, did I mention I'm petty?”

“I think I’ve heard that once or twice,” Adam nodded. “But really, K, she almost ate Lynch’s bird.”

K blew a raspberry on Adam’s shoulder. “Now I feel bad.”

“No, you don't.”

“Yes, I do,” K said. “I feel bad that she didn't actually eat it.”

Adam snorted. “It was a near thing. She got one of the tail feathers.”

“Damn!”

“She honestly ran _up_ him to get at it and then when Chainsaw flew off, she _jumped_ after it.”

“That’s my girl!” K said, wistful. “Wish I’d seen it...”

Adam was kind of glad K hadn’t. Ronan would have definitely tried to start a fight then and Adam would have to cede that he might actually, for once, have justified grounds. Even so, there had been a moment in the lot where Adam had thought Ronan was going to try and start something with Merriell. That would have been the dumbest thing he ever did and Adam was probably fooling himself into thinking he could have called her off if it came to that. 

The day had been just one narrowly avoided fight after another. 

Adam hadn't thought about his dad in so long. He’d let himself forget what it was like. He’d let himself be lulled into a false sense of safety. He wasn’t out of here just yet. Proceeding as if might help him get through the day, but if Adam really wanted to leave Henrietta, he still had to be cautious. He’d done well all things considered. His father hadn’t hit him. His father had left without Adam having to call the police. Even so, he just felt so stupid for assuming he was in the clear.

“What are you thinking about?”

Adam, unwilling to put his worries into words, asked suggestively, “What do _you_ think?” But his tone wasn't the right playful and showed his hand more than concealed it. 

“You could have just asked Merriell to eat him,” K sighed.

Adam could faintly hear the void creature purring. She was still in the bundle by the radiator under the window where she had been when Robert Parrish had stepped into Adam’s room, her long tail tucked around her mass a few times. Aside from the comment that Robert was surprised the church allowed Adam to keep an animal and later a nonplussed glance at her when she started hissing at him, he’d ignored her. Luckily, she had only watched him closely, with a predator’s eyes, and hadn't risen to show him her tail.

“Right and as the only person with an outstanding court date against him, I wouldn't be a suspect at all in his missing person's case,” Adam quipped. He hadn’t told K when his upcoming court date with his father had been rescheduled to, but K had to have assumed it was looming. 

Kavinsky’s silence suggested he could be patient waiting for Adam to expand on this information in his own time. Adam might, but he didn’t want to right then. K’s hands were worrying at some spot near his ribs that really didn’t need to be worked. 

“K,” Adam said, squirming away from his hands. “Not there.”

“Here?” K asked, fingers lightly prodding at a new spot.

“Further down,” Adam advised and then let out a heavy breath when K’s hands moved to work on his lower back. “That’s good.”

 

 

 

 

 

Adam woke to K’s steady breathing next to him. Both of them were miraculously still crammed together on Adam’s twin bed. Not without some contortions—K had a leg thrown over Adam's waist and he was more or less breathing in Adam’s bad ear—but that was alright.

The novelty of finding K asleep next to him still hadn’t worn off. Adam was glad he had stayed the night, though he would have understood if K had decided to bounce once Adam drifted off. Hell, Adam was happy he had come over—insisted on coming over—in the first place. It must have been obvious Adam was at his wit’s end on the phone last night, but he couldn’t for the life of him think of what he’d said that gave it away, before they got into it and by then K had already been in the car on his way to him. 

_Maybe_ , Adam thought turning to look at K full-on, _Kavinsky knew Adam as well as Adam knew K._

Adam felt a quiet smile on his lips as he brushed some hair off of K’s forehead and tried to remember this moment even as it happened. Regardless of if they fell apart or if it ended badly, Adam would still have moments like this when everything was so soft and warm and he was _happy_.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHHHH shit! They got togetherrrrrr! You're probably asking yourself 'where's this bitch gonna take the story now since there are supposedly four more parts to go???' Believe you me, we are far from done yet! but to verify that for yourself I guess you're gonna have to come and read the next part when I get it done... ahahah!! And, yeah, I totally quoted _Brief Encounter_.
> 
> I kept blowing past my deadlines for getting this part up, but as you can see from the word count I had a lot of ground to cover. Personally, I think 71k in 4 months and 24days is pretty darn impressive, and yeah the wait's a crapshoot but to quote my son, 'Nobody wants half a tattoo!' So yeah I would have liked to get this up in February but things were NOT WORKING! You have no idea. [So Here We Are](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzZQJZdcCU4) (a great song by Bloc Party vv AdamK. check it out)! I hope you find this was worth the wait. If you enjoyed the story so far and are so inclined, you are welcome to [buy me a coffee](https://ko-fi.com/M4M65HKZ)!
> 
> I cannot wait to hear what you think!! Please tell me! I have no idea otherwise. Comment or [come yell at me on tumblr](http://realisaonum.tumblr.com), where I sometimes post about [my progress on this piece](http://realisaonum.tumblr.com/tagged/peripeteia)!

**Author's Note:**

> I tried really hard for a while to stay on the book's timeline, but then I just threw up my hands because I honestly could not be arsed to figure out hers? #confusing #unspecific like most of her plot is about as smudgy as those public telescopes down by the sea with the lenses everyone's put fingerprints all over. So excuse me, if i fucked with the timeline, but this _is_ a canon divergence fic. I'm going to try and adhere to some of the major plot points in the rest of the series, but it's called fragments for a reason? Some canon scenes will only be referenced and other revelations will simply have to be moved around entirely given the added players etc etc
> 
> As for the title of the piece and each of the section heads, I am playing with aspects of Bon Iver's album _22, A Million_. Personally, I found it to be such a satisfying album; but I love it even more in relation to this pairing. Its themes of searching for something more and journeys of healing in concert with the summer-y, light tone really fit the aspects of K and A's relationship that I am trying to get at here.
> 
> title: '[33 (GOD)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C5sB6AqJkM)' and '[8 (circle)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPsBFPX_yU4)'  
> part i: '[666 ʇ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96t0rlPmn2E)'  
> part ii: '[22 (OVER S∞∞N)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISCEilPMNak)'  
> part iii: '[8 (circle)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPsBFPX_yU4)'
> 
> Finally, updates! I have carefully plotted out the parts so they will each have a small arc within them. My average writing speed is about 10k per month. Each part has no set word count but length is tied to scene completion. If an update is taking what seems to be along time it is probably because there are a lot of scenes. In other words, they will happen when they happen. I work full time and, honestly, I won't be putting a new part up until I am sure its as good as I can get it.
> 
> A note on the rating change: PARTS I and II are for MATURE audiences. PART III has EXPLICIT CONTENT only in Act II and Act III.


End file.
